Changing lives with technology: Ireland's first assistive technology centre

Ireland's first assistive technology centre opened this week at the Dublin premises of Enable Ireland.

The National Assistive Technology Training Centre will advise and train people with disabilities or work-related injuries on technologies that can enhance their lives and enable them to find work.

Microsoft has been working with Enable Ireland, which provides support services to 3,500 children and adults, since 2000, and will provide a further €60,000 in funding next year.

The centre is adopting a "train the trainers" approach, and Siobhán Long of Enable Ireland said it hoped that the 700 people who receive technology training each year would pass their skills on to a minimum of three other people.

The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 67 per cent.

Albert Brown, a visually impaired employee of the Department of Social and Family Affairs, said special technologies such as text-to-speech software had transformed his job.

"It has changed my whole way of working in the department," said Mr Brown. "Now I am part of the mainstream."