Accessibility Statement

The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO) is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with European Union (Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications of Public Sector Bodies) Regulations 2020.

This accessibility statement applies to content published on www.fspo.ie. which was launched on 1 January 2018.

PDF Documents

The FSPO makes use of Portable Document Format (pdf) documents.  A number of the documents on our website are available in this format.  To view these documents, you will need to install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader Software.

Should you have any issue with downloading documents for our website please email us at info@fspo.ie.

Compliance Status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level AA due to the non-accessible content listed below.

Non-accessible content

This is not an exhaustive list of non-accessible content.

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

Tables: Some tables do not have correctly defined headers. This makes it harder for people using screen readers or voice recognition software to read the content on the site.

PDFs: Many documents are published as PDFs, which are less accessible than HTML pages for people using assistive technologies. Some of the relevant accessibility limitations with PDFs include:

  • the fact that they are not bookmarked
  • tables in PDFs are not defined and have no headers
  • some images do not have alt text

Breadcrumbs: The website does not have a breadcrumb trail, which makes it harder for the user to navigate the site.
We are working to improve the accessibility compliance of our website and will endeavour to apply all accessibility standards to content being published to our website going forward.

The FSPO is undertaking two work items to improve the accessibility of its website(s):

  1. Staff review and improve the accessibility of all PDFs on an ongoing basis.
  2. The FSPO will develop a new, fully accessible website, in 2024.

Exempted content

Content published prior to 23 September 2018 is exempt under the EU Web Accessibility Directive. The PDFs in our archive websites, those of the Financial Services Ombudsman and the Office of the Pensions Ombudsman prior to September 2018, would require significant resourcing to bring about compliance with WCAG2.1/EN 301 549. However, the FSPO is committed to ensuring all our content is as accessible as possible.

Please contact us if there is any inaccessible content that was published to our site prior to September 2018 that you wish to receive in accessible format and we will endeavour to assist you.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 11 January 2022.

This statement follows an evaluation of the website’s compliance with the requirements of Directive (EU) 2016/2102 which was carried out by way of a self-assessment by the FSPO against WCAG 2.1.

We used WAVE web accessibility evaluation tool, Foxit PDF Editor Pro and validator.w3.org.

The statement was last reviewed on 11 January 2022.

This review identified a number of issues that have since been fixed including unnecessary title tags, multiple instances of the same link on the same page and unnecessary alt descriptions on decorative icons.

Feedback and contact information

The FSPO is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for persons with disabilities. We welcome feedback on the accessibility of our website.

Queries and complaints about accessibility are dealt with by our Access Officer, whose role is to provide or arrange for, and coordinate assistance and guidance to persons with disabilities accessing the services we provide. Our Access Officer may be contacted by phone at (01) 567 7000 or email at access@fspo.ie.

If you have a comment or complaint about the accessibility of this website, please email us at access@fspo.ie.

If you wish to request particular content in an accessible format, please include the following details:

  • Your required format
  • The content you wish to receive (please include the url of the content)
  • Your name and email address

We will make all reasonable efforts to fulfil your request.

Enforcement procedure

For information on making a complaint please see our page on Complaints About Our Own Services.

If you are dissatisfied with our response to your complaint, you can make a complaint to the Ombudsman under the Disability Act.