‘I wish [the European Accessibility Act] it shouldn’t have been there, but I’m glad it is,’ said Kyran O’Mahoney, founder of Nexus Inclusion.
“It’s annoying”, Kyran O’Mahoney admits, that millions of people living with disabilities really expect technology to not work for them. “Something is broken [in society]” that we don’t think about ourselves.
By not providing accessible services, businesses are excluding millions from their potential market. “It doesn’t make financial sense not to do this,” he said.
“In the end you say ‘you have to do it, it’s the law’, right? If you do it, you’ll make more sales and bring in more money.
Access testing is happening, but reports are often thrown aside by teams that don’t understand how to implement the recommended changes, said O’Mahoney, speaking to SiliconRepublic.com ahead of the launch of the new Nexus Inclusion product on May 25.
The Nexus product launch is scheduled a few days after Global Accessibility Awareness Day today (21 May).
According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 1.3bn people or about 16% of the population living with a disability. But in reality, O’Mahoney says, it’s higher than that, if you consider, for example, the elderly, or those with temporary disabilities.
In Ireland people living with a disability make up around 22 per cent of the population, according to Employers for Change.
Meanwhile, another global survey from 2025 reported that 84pc of respondents (including software developers, engineers and legal professionals) said that digital accessibility is a top priority for their company. However, the reality seems to be very different.
Statistics also suggest that 96pc of the world’s top 1m websites are not accessible to people with disabilities, and around 71pc of disabled users come from inaccessible websites.
The National Disability Authority finds that websites in Ireland have an average accessibility rate of 55.2pc – all of which translates into a loss in revenue for businesses.
O’Mahoney founded Nexus Inclusion in 2024 to address this issue, and a year after its official launch in 2025, he says he has built a “first” in the area of digital accessibility with a new AI-powered tool.
Accessibility and ease of use are two factors O’Mahoney’s team focused on when developing their AI tool, he says. It is a “hard truth” that digital accessibility is a difficult thing to do. “And that’s why it’s being pushed out”.
The first AI tool enables continuous compliance detection across websites, digital products, and video and other media. The product performs automatic checks and guides users to fix any problems.
O’Mahoney says the user-friendly tool is designed for those who don’t understand accessible digital design. While the startup is also dealing with the collection of products by reducing the prices to target smaller websites, up to SMEs.
The Nexus placement raised €2m last summer, followed by a further €1.5m late last year and early this year.
O’Mahoney says the product has been well received following a sneak peek earlier this year. “There’s a real need out there for people who want to be accessible”.
The startup currently employs eight and plans to hire about five to seven across technology, digital accessibility and marketing this year.
A recurring problem
The fact that accessibility had to be legally mandated is “outrageous”, O’Mahoney tells me. “I wish [the European Accessibility Act] it didn’t have to be there, but I’m glad it’s there.”
However, in some smaller segments, the digital accessibility gap is also widening due to a lack of knowledge between people living with and without disabilities.
“The most important thing is that people don’t know that technology is there to support them or create that freedom.”
This is where outreach coaches play an important role in persuading a certain community that is fearful, wary of technology that excludes them from doing, to pick up these tools.
Companies like Nexus Inclusion, meanwhile, are trying to address the issue by ensuring that businesses, at the very least, always comply with accessibility laws.
“We’re all different. We all have different things going on in our lives, whether they’re temporary or permanent, and I think that’s the best way to look at it – when we look at product development – [that] everyone will use it differently.”
O’Mahoney says such problems can be better addressed in different workplaces, but “statistically, people with disabilities tend to lose their jobs.” The disability employment rate in Ireland stands at just over 32pc, almost 20pc lower than the EU average of 51.3pc.
O’Mahoney, who was born with 17pc vision, previously worked at Vision Ireland as chief technology officer. In 2021, he founded Inclusion and Accessibility Labs, an IT consulting firm, which he also leads as CEO.
She says: “Advocacy in this space is growing. “And more and more people are identifying that they have a disability in some way now, because it’s no longer considered something to be ashamed of – which I think is great.”
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