Jurisdictions — Europe
Website accessibility compliance in Ireland: what the European Accessibility Act changed for agencies
The question Irish clients are asking
You build or maintain sites for Irish businesses. A client asks: "This European Accessibility Act — does it apply to us? We're not a big company." Here is the honest answer, in plain English, without a sales scare.
What is true, verified
- Ireland is in scope — the EAA applies since 28 June 2025. Ireland transposed the European Accessibility Act into Irish law (the European Union (Accessibility Requirements of Products and Services) Regulations). In-scope services — e-commerce prominently among them — offered to consumers must meet accessibility requirements. This is applicable law, not a future deadline.
- Microenterprises have an exemption — but check it, don't assume it. The EAA carves out microenterprises providing services (fewer than 10 staff and under €2m turnover). Many Irish SMEs sit just above that line, and the exemption is narrower than most summaries suggest. Verify a client's position before telling them they're exempt.
- The practical benchmark is WCAG. The EAA's technical requirements are met in practice via the European standard EN 301 549, which points to WCAG criteria for web content. If an audit doesn't measure against WCAG, it isn't measuring against what enforcement will look at.
- Irish public bodies already had obligations. The EU Web Accessibility Directive has applied to Irish public-sector websites for years (accessibility statement + WCAG-based conformance). If your client supplies the public sector, expect it in procurement.
How to check a client site yourself
- Accessibility signals: run an automated WCAG checker (axe-core is the open-source standard) on the key templates — home, product page, checkout, contact form. Automated checks catch the mechanical failures that surface first: missing alt text, unlabelled fields, poor contrast.
- Consent posture: load the site cold and watch what fires before consent (GDPR/ ePrivacy — the DPC is the supervisory authority Irish clients answer to).
- Broken links and SEO basics: cover the 404s and missing metadata in the same pass.
- Document what you saw: capture the page state behind every finding. An audit that cannot show its evidence is an opinion.
The honest shortcut
We built SiteComply to do exactly that pass — accessibility signals, consent posture, broken links, SEO basics — in a single $29 audit where every finding points to the exact page state we observed. White-label friendly, built for agency portfolios, and it never claims more than it verified.