Marginalisation, Disability and Candidature in the 2024 Elections

Heading: Disability, Diversity and Identity in Ireland’s Local and European Elections 2024

Disabled people, who make up 22% of the population, are identified as having extremely low participation in public and political life in Ireland. The potential consequences of this marginalisation are that they do not have the opportunity to contribute to decision-making processes around issues that concern them. Those who identify as holding multiple intersecting identities may find themselves facing greater levels of marginalisation. Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) outlines the importance of protecting disabled people’s right “to stand for elections, to effectively hold office and perform all public functions at all levels of government, facilitating the use of assistive and new technologies where appropriate”.

Project Summary:

This research focuses on the experiences of disabled candidates who identified as holding intersecting identities and stood in the Irish local and European elections (2024). Intersecting identities for the purpose of this research were drawn primarily from those protected under the nine grounds of the Equal Status Acts 2000 - 2018 (gender, marital status, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, membership of the Traveller community). While the Acts do not explicitly include socio-economic status as a protected characteristic the research team included this within the scope of our research. This is the first research of its kind in Ireland on the impact of intersecting identities on the political representation of those within the disabled community.

Seven disabled election candidates with intersecting identities and eight organisations representing marginalized communities in Ireland {including disabled people, women, Travellers, migrants and LGBTQI+ people) participated in interviews for this research. A number of systemic barriers emerged within this research, including barriers related to inaccessibility of the built environment, information and communication, negative attitudes, fear of violence, insufficient financial resources, balancing of commitments and lack of support, including political party support and lack of support from organisations representing disabled people, and other marginalised communities. As a result of these findings, the research team developed recommendations for the State, civil society and political parties to ensure more accessible pathways into political life for disabled people from underrepresented communities.

A report on the findings of our research is available 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.

For more information about the project, contact

Eilionóir Flynn eilionoir.flynn@universityofgalway.ie

Vivian Rath vrath@tcd.ie

Aoife Price aprice@ucc.ie

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.

1. Version with Captions, Slides and partial sign language, please click here or use the following link https://youtu.be/l-fd91dEFYQ
2. Version with sign language only, please click here or use the following link https://youtu.be/-z6imfMHgBU