Under Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), Ireland is obliged to collect appropriate information, including statistical and research data, to develop and implement policies in line with the Convention. In 2006, a National Disability Survey (NDS) was conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the results of which were used to plan services, develop policies, and for further research. The 2006 survey is now considered dated, and its usefulness for current policy development is limited. The Department of Children, Disability and Equality (DCDE) have proposed running a new national survey on disability following the 2027 Census of Population, as set out in the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. The new survey will be collected by CSO as the Irish Disability Survey (IDS) in 2028.
Throughout 2025, a series of cross-government, public and subject matter consultations took place, to produce a prioritised list of content requirements for the IDS. The IDS Steering Group, led by DCDE and with representatives across government, academia, the disability sector, and people with lived experience, received this list in October 2025. At that time, it was accepted it would not be possible to include all proposed content in the IDS 2026 pilot.
In this report the CSO outlines what content will be taken into the next phase of development, IDS questionnaire design, as well as what content is out of scope. Survey questions are being developed and refined throughout 2026, using CSO expertise, consultation with international counterparts, and DPO engagement.
This report presents the survey content on a module-by-module basis. Modules are a way of organising the survey; each module focuses on a particular topic, and questions are grouped into the appropriate modules. Image 1 below shows the proposed flow of survey modules for the 2026 IDS pilot. The survey will begin with an introduction section and followed by eleven themed modules on demographic information, disability screening, well-being and social inclusion, housing and accessibility, transport, education, employment, assistive technology, care and support, health services, and social and civic activities. The IDS will close with a survey end section.
Image 1: flow of the IDS pilot questionnaire modules
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Throughout this report, detail on what is in and out of scope across the survey modules will be given.
The disability screening module will play a pivotal role in the questionnaire design. It will establish how respondents flow though the survey, and more importantly how disability is defined. Developing a screening module is challenging, as there is little to no broad agreement, nationally or internationally, on a definition of what is meant by ‘disabled’. The 2026 IDS pilot will use a new screening method, to better align to national and international best practice, and stakeholder recommendations.
The final section of this report outlines the ongoing secondary data review. The integration of primary and secondary data is a key mechanism used by the CSO to reduce burden on respondents. This review will continue through the questionnaire design phase, informing the structure of the final survey questionnaire.
The content recommendations outlined in this report were approved by DCDE and the wider IDS Steering Group in January 2026. The recommendations presented in this report will be subject to further refinement as the design phase is progressed by the CSO throughout 2026. This means that some of the content outlined in this report could potentially change or be excluded before the pilot survey goes into the field. The pilot will commence by the end of 2026 and into the first quarter of 2027.