Folks, Because of this being mentioned in recent discussions, I visited http://www.ncbi.ie/ and fed back on what I saw, pointing out that I was an IFSO member & got the following response. <start> Hi, Thanks for the Feedback on the website. The correct figure of Blind and Vision impaired people we have registered with us is 7163. As regards the Technical Pages, I suppose the omission of any Linux related information is
down to me. At present the pages only contain the relevant information to the products that we currently sell. We do have on of our Support Officers who has installed a copy of Linux with built in screen reading software and
has begun testing it. I have asked him to write up a report on what he is using and his experiences with it, I hope to be able to put this up soon. Collyn Kenny NCBI <finish>
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mmcweeney@oceanfree.net wrote:
... I visited http://www.ncbi.ie/ ... and Collyn Kenny responded
The correct figure of Blind and Vision impaired people we have registered with us is 7163.
I've found comparable data sets at http://www.euroblind.org/fichiersGB/STAT.htm
Ireland: http://www.euroblind.org/fichiersGB/statIRE.htm --------
Total visually impaired population* : 17 000 approx.
*Blind population : 6 448 *Partially sighted population : 11 000 approx.
(* Data provided by the National Council of the Blind of Ireland, March 2002. The National Council for the Blind of Ireland conservatively estimates that there are approximately 30 000 persons in the Republic of Ireland who are or may be eligible to be registered as blind or partially sighted.)
UK: http://www.euroblind.org/fichiersGB/statUK.htm ---
Total visually impaired population : 1 066 740 (identified) 354 153 (registered)
*Blind population : 193 956 (registered) *Partially sighted population : 160 197 (registered)
Ratio of identified visually impaired population / total population -------------------------------------------------------------------
Ireland - 0.8 % UK - 1.8 %
I guess this reflects age demography.
-- Adam M