Irish Wheelchair Association is Ireland’s leading organisation for people with physical disabilities.

We provide a nationwide assisted living service, community centres in every county, a fleet of accessible buses, a national parking permit and driving school service, wheelchair accessible social houses and help young people with disabilities to build employability skills and confidence.

Our flagship sports programme, IWA Sport, is the national governing body for wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby and powerlifting and runs sports clubs for children and adults. Many of Ireland’s finest para-athletes started their careers with IWA Sport.

Our Impact in 2019

Our assisted living service delivers 1.3 million hours of service annually.
We managed 49 wheelchair accessible and affordable homes.
Our 117 accessible buses connected wheelchair users with their communities in the absence of a State service.
We provided almost 85,000 days of service in our centres to 2,440 people.
We ran 57 community centres where people with disabilities attend training, socials and therapies.
We issued almost 29,000 disabled parking permits a year.
Our 31 sports clubs encouraged participation in sport for adults and children.
Provided 550 driving assessments and over 2,000 driving lessons to 314 people.

Our History

Irish Wheelchair Association was set up sixty years ago in 1960 when a group of Paralympians took the visionary move to establish an organisation and services that cater for people with physical disabilities.

View IWA’s History