News

On the 5th of March we held a webinar to launch the PREPARED project and our first call for proposals. PREPARED is an exciting new project led by the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the University of Galway in collaboration with  Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas, Universidade de Lisboa and Swiss Paraplegic Research. The project aims to support the next generation of disability rights postdoctoral researchers to respond to the most urgent global challenges of our time. As governments, development agencies and civil society struggle to respond to challenges such as the climate crisis, the refugee crisis and the covid-19 pandemic, disabled people are often left behind. PREPARED will equip postdoctoral researchers to address these global challenges by offering opportunities within leading global interdisciplinary research teams, and embedding researchers where they are most needed – in organisations outside academia where they can apply their research to real world problems, ensuring maximum societal impact. We will be recruiting a total of 6 postdoctoral researchers between 2025-2030. The first call for proposals for the PREPARED project is now open. The project is currently accepting proposals for full-time, fixed term Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowships across its three employing organisations. Up to three fellowships may be awarded in the first call. PREPARED Fellowships are open to applicants of any nationality who have a PhD degree and comply with the programme’s eligibility criteria and mobility rules including disabled researchers and Researchers at Risk (those displaced by conflict or whose situation makes it difficult to pursue research careers are also encouraged to apply. All candidates must develop a research proposal and seek the support of an eligible PREPARED supervisor for their application.  More information on the project and the call for proposals is available at the following link - https://preparedresearch.eu/

The Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP) at University of Galway is pleased to announce the return of our International Disability Law Summer School from Monday 16th to Wednesday 18th of June 2025. Our theme this year is ‘Disabled Activism in an Age of Far-Right Resurgence’. This year the event will be condensed into three days as opposed to previous years which have taken place over five days. This year’s event will again follow a hybrid approach, enabling speakers and delegates to participate in-person or online.   To register for the event or find out more click on this link.

The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 was commenced on the 26th April 2023 and is now fully operational. The Act radically changes Ireland’s law in relation to capacity, decision-making, and support. Upcoming Dates For the dates of our upcoming training sessions and registration information please visit the following link - https://cdlp.clr.events/event/137257  

The first Irish study of disabled political candidates has identified financial costs and difficulty canvassing as among the many systemic barriers facing disabled candidates who wish to participate in political life in Ireland. The research focused on the experiences of disabled candidates who identified as holding intersecting identities and stood in the Irish local and European elections in 2024. It was conducted by researchers at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, University of Galway and Trinity College Dublin. The research was funded under the National Disability Authority Research Promotion Scheme. The qualitative research involved in-depth interviews with seven disabled political candidates with intersecting identities, and representatives from eight organisations representing migrant, LGBTQ+ and Traveller communities, disabled people’s organisations, and education and training organisations. The full report, ‘Disability, Diversity and Identity in Ireland’s Local and European Elections 2024’, can be read here as a PDF or here as a MS Word Document. An Easy-to-Read version of the research report is available here as a PDF. The recording for the recent Report launch is now available. The slides from the recent webinar are available here NDA project report launch slides There are two version of the video available to watch the Webinar back. Version with Captions, Slides and partial sign language, please click hereor use the following link https://youtu.be/l-fd91dEFYQ Version with sign language only, please click hereor use the following link https://youtu.be/-z6imfMHgBU

We are delighted to launch a new research report ‘Exploring the Need for a Representative Advocacy Service for Children with Intellectual Disabilities in Ireland’. The research was completed by Emma Q Burns, Dr Cliona de Bhailís and Professor Eilionóir Flynn and was commissioned by Inclusion Ireland. This research has demonstrated that there is a clear gap in the provision of representative advocacy for children with intellectual disabilities in Ireland. While many participants in this research identified that there is potential for a representative advocacy service for children with intellectual disabilities consensus on the precise structure, governance, and operation of such a service were hard to achieve. What is evident is that access to representative advocacy can help protect and promote the rights of children with intellectual disabilities, but that any such service must be child-centred, human rights-focused, fully accessible and adequately resourced to fulfil its remit.You can access the research report and an Easy Read version by clicking here.

Congratulations to Grace Barnes who was awarded a Hardiman PhD Scholarship from the University of Galway and joined the Centre's PhD programme earlier this semester. Grace's PhD research 'Disability or Sexuality? Unmasking the Construction of Disabled Women’s Identities in Human Rights Discourses' is supervised by Professor Eilionóir Flynn.

The CDLP was delighted to celebrate the achievements of a number of our PhD and LLM students today. Dr Aoife Price graduated from our PhD programme today. Her PhD ‘Frictions and Coalitions: Findings from a European Study of Disabled Women’s Experiences in Social Movements’ was supervised by Professor Eilionóir Flynn as part of the DARE (Disability Advocacy Research in Europe) Project funded through the European Commission’s Marie Curie programme. Huge congratulations on your achievement Aoife! Today also saw the graduation of the 2023/2024 class of the LLM in International and Comparative Disability Law and Policy. Pictured below are Stephain Lynagh and Tatum McGuffin, LLM graduates, with Dr. Aoife Price and Professor Eilionoir Flynn. We wish them all the best in their future endeavours. Congratulations once again to all of our graduates and indeed to all of those from the University of Galway School of Law and the Irish Centre for Human Rights at University of Galway.  

On the 22nd of May the Centre hosted a webinar on our LLM in International and Comparative Disability Law and Policy programme. Professor Eilionóir Flynn, Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy and Established Chair in the School of Law was joined by Thokozani Soko to discuss entry requirements, modules, the student experience and much more. This unique LLM is an innovative and internationally focused programme dealing with the process of law reform in the field of disability. Each year two students from this LLM are selected to participate in a prestigious internship with the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The webinar is now available to watch back for anyone who missed the live session: click here You can find out more about the LLM at this link: Click here

The Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP) at University of Galway is pleased to announce the return of our International Disability Law Summer School from Monday 17th to Friday 21st of June, 2024. This year’s event will again follow a hybrid approach, enabling speakers and delegates to participate in-person or online. Our theme this year is ‘Gender and Disability Justice.’ To register for the event: click here

The final report and the full range of knowledge products from the research project 'Closing the Justice Gap for Women with Intellectual and/or Psychosocial Disabilities' is now available on the UN Women website. In 2022, UN Women launched the Closing the Justice Gap project, which included legal needs surveys in Nepal, Fiji, the Philippines, and Indonesia, of women with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities. We worked on this project with colleagues in Irish Centre for Human Rights and also worked closely with individuals with disabilities and their representative organisations across each of the countries represented. You can find out more about the project, its findings and access the materials at the following link: click here