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The Irish Disability Survey is a voluntary nationwide survey of individuals carried out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Your participation in this new survey is important, as it will gather data on the issues facing disabled people today.
You may receive a letter or text message from the CSO about the Irish Disability Survey (IDS).
This important survey gathers data on the issues facing disabled people today. Your participation in this national survey is important and you can learn more about it in this section.
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The Irish Disability Survey (IDS) is a voluntary nationwide survey of individuals carried out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) under Section 24 of the Statistics Act, 1993. The Irish Disability Survey collects information about various areas of the participants life. For example, their use of health services, education, transport and employment. Factors which impact participants daily lives, such as environmental or personal factors, are also collected to better understand societal barriers faced by disabled people. The survey provides reliable data about disabled people in Ireland, which can then be used to inform disability related policies.
The information we get directly from you through the Irish Disability Survey (IDS) will give us a clear picture of the lives of disabled people, showing the situation at national and regional level. The statistics we will produce will be used by individuals, non-governmental organisations and charities, local authorities and national government to inform decisions. These statistics will help to create policies that help provide public services where and when they’re needed most. We need as many people as possible to take part to ensure the data that is collected represents the lives and experiences of everyone in Ireland. We depend on your information, so if you are asked to take part, please do so because your voice matters.
The data you provide when taking part will help shape decisions about:
Everyone’s experience is different. By taking part, you help ensure that services and policies are informed by evidence from people across Ireland.
In 2006, a National Disability Survey was carried out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), and the results were used to plan services, develop policies, and for research. The Department for Children, Disability and Equality (DCDE) have asked the CSO to run the Irish Disability Survey (IDS) in 2028.
In 2025, the CSO worked closely with DCDE, representatives from across the disability sector, the Disabled Persons Organisation (DPO) Network, other government departments, and researchers to agree and prioritise the content for the IDS. Since January 2026, the CSO took over responsibility of the survey as it moved from the consultation phase, into the development phase. A major piece of work in the development phase is designing the questions that will be asked in the survey.
The CSO are working with an expert panel of people with lived experience to refine the survey questions. This expert panel have given us valuable feedback, so that the resulting questions are easy to understand and will capture good quality data. Working closely with disabled people is a key aspect of the survey development. We are grateful to the members of the expert panel who have volunteered their time to work with us.
The next part of this development phase will be to run a pilot survey towards the end of 2026. A pilot survey, which is a test of the main survey, will run in the last quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2027. What we learn from the pilot will help us understand the feasibility of the design and how people respond to the survey questions.
Protecting your confidentiality is at the heart of everything we do. Your confidentiality is guaranteed by law under the Statistics Act, 1993, which means no individual, household or enterprise can be identified from the data we publish. The information you provide is generalised, so nobody is identifiable from the data you provide and it is only used for statistical purposes. We’d like to thank you for your trust in us.
Because confidentiality is so important to our work, we have developed a Trust & Transparency page.
If you have any questions about your participation, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Email: CSOTakePart@cso.ie
Phone: 021 453 5110
Find information and contact details on a range of support services that can help with a range of issues
Find answers to common questions about the Irish Disability Survey
Details of data gathered in this survey, how it is processed and protected
Learn about how the CSO work with data, the protections we have in place, and our approach to ethics and transparency
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.