The purpose of this report is to inform data users and other stakeholders in the disability sector about what content will be included in the Irish Disability Survey (IDS) 2026 pilot, particularly the new and revised topics, and the reasoning behind any changes from the 2006 National Disability Survey.
Following a consultation phase led by The Department of Children, Disability and Equality (DCDE), the Central Statistics Office (CSO) have taken received data requirements, to create a survey questionnaire design for the 2026 IDS pilot. The CSO is Ireland’s national statistical institute, who’s role is to provide independent statistics about our society, economy, and environment, which are freely available to everyone and support evidence-informed decision making.
For Official Statistics to be of value, they must be trusted. The statistics produced by the CSO are regulated by the principles set out in the European Statistics Code of Practice (ESCoP) and in the Irish Statistical System Code of Practice (ISSCoP). The purpose of ESCoP and ISSCoP is to ensure the quality and credibility of the data underpinning official statistics.
During the IDS consultations, stakeholders highlighted a lack of up-to-date data and in some cases an absence of data in the overall area of disability. Stakeholders also flagged data quality issues in relation to the 2006 National Disability Survey (NDS): some of the 2006 survey content was outdated or in need of refinement, therefore not meeting some important data needs. In response, and in line with our codes of practice for data quality, the CSO recommend some significant changes to what we ask and how we ask it in the IDS. Given the time gap between the 2006 survey, the quality dimensions of relevance, accuracy, and current national and international consistency were prioritised, over providing a comparative time series.
Under Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), Ireland is obliged to collect information, including statistical and research data, to develop and implement policies in line with the Convention. Ireland is also required to monitor the implementation of the Convention and to identify and address the barriers faced by disabled people in exercising their rights.
In 2006, a National Disability Survey was carried out by the CSO with a sample of people indicating that they had a disability in the Census of Population 2006. The results were used to plan services, to develop policies, and for further research on a range of topics.
At nearly 20 years since its collection, the information from the 2006 survey is now considered dated, and its usefulness for current policy development is limited. The DCDE have proposed that a new disability survey be conducted 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 as Irish Disability Survey (IDS) in 2028 (pilot in 2026) and will replace the National Disability Survey (2006). A change in name is to reflect the break in time series due to changes in the disability landscape. See Appendix 1 for a full list of relevant framework and strategies informing the development of the Irish Disability Survey.
In 2024 DCDE (formally DCEDIY) convened and chaired a survey Steering Group. The IDS Steering Group consists of representatives from the National Disability Authority (NDA), Government Departments, the Disabled Persons’ Organisation (DPO) Network, the Disability Federation of Ireland and Academia (see Appendix 2 for a full list of Steering Group members). The Steering Group agreed that first steps were to run a series of consultations. The Steering Group asked the NDA to conduct a public consultation, focusing on DPOs and academia. DCDE ran a cross-government consultation. The focus of these consultations was to establish if there was a need for a new national survey on disability and what this might look like.
These consultations focused on exploring potential content for a new disability survey. Methodological considerations, such as sample size and selection, questionnaire design, or mode of data collection, did not fall under the remit of these consultations.
Fourteen departments and two agencies contributed to the cross-government consultation and as part of the public consultations, feedback was received from 28 organisations, and 15 individuals representing themselves. There was overwhelming support for running a national disability survey.
The Steering Group identified five core themes emerging from both sets of consultations. Subsequently, the Steering Group agreed to establish five subject matter subgroups. The objective of these subgroups was to discuss and prioritise content for inclusion in the next national survey on disability. The five subgroups were:
Sub-group membership was established by DCDE, with representatives from various government departments, academia, sectorial bodies and DPOs (see Appendix 3 for a full list of subgroup members). Each sub-group was co-chaired by CSO and a subject matter expert from DCDE, Department of Social Protection, Department of Transport, Health Service Executive (HSE), and the NDA.
The sub-groups returned a prioritised list of all data requirements to the Steering Group in September 2025. At this time, it was agreed it would not be possible to include all content proposals in the IDS 2026 pilot. Therefore, it was necessary for the Steering Group to further prioritise this list, to support the next phase; the questionnaire development by the CSO.
The next section of this report outlines the content that the Steering Group have recommended be taken forward into the pilot questionnaire design phase.
The rationale for any topics considered out of scope for inclusion in the pilot will be discussed, and may fall under the following reasons:
It is important to note, that the wording presented throughout the report is used to illustrate the topics proposed for collection. It does not reflect the final wording that will be used in the survey questionnaire. Question wording is being refined throughout 2026 and ahead of the pilot, using the expertise of our questionnaire designers, consultation with international counterparts, as well as engagement with the DPO Network.
Engagement with the DPO Network will primarily take the form of cognitive interviewing. Cognitive interviewing is a method used to develop high-quality surveys, by evaluating how respondents interpret and answer questions. It involves conducting one-on-one interviews, often using "think-aloud" or verbal probing techniques, to identify question problems with comprehension, memory retrieval, judgment, or response mapping. This iterative process ensures questions are valid, reliable, and unbiased. Cognitive interviewing is one element of the CSO’s planned DPO engagement over the next phase of development.
Lastly, the survey content presented in this report will be subject to further refinement as the electronic questionnaire is programmed and tested. 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.