Access for the Disabled

From the collection of

Launched in 2000, Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive spans from 1897 to the present day and currently contains an ever-expanding catalogue of 13,000 items. It comprises material from a variety of depositors including feature films, sport, documentaries, animation, amateur footage, light entertainment, and a significant proportion of broadcast material from the UTV Archive.

Access for the Disabled (Good Evening Ulster)

Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive
Belfast
1987-03-10
Sound

The battle to make Northern more accessible for people with disabilities.

A UTV report on the problems faced by those with disabilities in terms of access and mobility around Northern Ireland. A wheelchair user is seen struggling to get up onto a kerb and is then interviewed about the problems facing those in wheelchairs. She also speaks of the differing needs of those who are visually impaired and hard of hearing, as well as what types of signage and announcements in public places are required.

The reporter sets out how the forerunner to then-current Northern Ireland Council on Disability set up an Access Committee to involve planners, architects and those with differing physical requirements to try and improve things. On the day of the report the government had just announced a 20% increase in funding for the committee.

There is also a demonstration of Northern Ireland Railways' new measures at Belfast's Central Station, where ramps and a lift have been provided for wheelchair users from the car park, with public pay phones lowered in height to make them easier to reach for those in a wheelchair. While praising these new measures, the interviewee suggests that legislation may be better than relying on the goodwill of individual companies.

Good Evening Ulster was the weekday tea-time local news round-up for Ulster Television throughout much of the 1980s and helped to launch the careers of household names such as Gloria Hunniford and Eamonn Holmes.

Diversity and Inclusion

A selection of news clips from the UTV archives highlighting the struggle for equality and diversity in Northern Ireland.

The 1980s and 1990s saw several significant changes in Northern Irish society. From improving services and support for neurodiverse people and people with physical disabilities, to amending workplace laws to address inequality for women, UTV documented many small but significant steps towards progress. The channel also covered Northern Ireland's growing diversity in terms of population. People from all over the world moved to the country to live and work. In this collection, we learn more about the Chinese, Indian, Persian and other communities that now call Northern Ireland home.

55 videos in this collection