The next Irish general election will happen on Friday 29 November.
The National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) has built this webpage to:
- provide you with information that explains the voting process;
- show how you can support adult literacy in this general election; and
- share what political parties are saying about adult literacy in their manifestos.
Have your voice heard
Elections can seem complicated as there is a lot of information to take in.
You may find these websites helpful to explain how voting works in Ireland:
Why is literacy important?
There are around 500,000 adults in Ireland (1 in 6) who struggle with reading and understanding everyday text like bus timetables and medicine instructions. Even more adults in Ireland struggle with everyday maths (around 1 in 4, or 750,000) 4 and digital skills (around 4 in 10, or 1.2 million).*
This has a devastating impact on individuals, communities, the economy and our society.
Literacy, numeracy and digital literacy skills enable people to make sense of the world, to have their voices heard, and to reach their full potential. These skills are needed in our society to overcome problems like disinformation, intergenerational poverty and the digital divide.
What are we asking parties to do?
NALA has seven asks for political parties in this election:
- Use plain language in the election campaign.
- Require publicly funded organisations to use plain language.
- Use the National Training Fund for training at Levels 1 – 4.
- Put targeted resources behind Government literacy strategies.
- Adopt the European Digital Competence Framework.
- Develop a strategy for ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages).
- Appoint a Minister of State for Lifelong Learning.
Find out more by reading our election asks.
Read NALA's election asks
What are parties saying about adult literacy?
We have read the six biggest political parties’ manifestos to see what they have to say about adult literacy, numeracy and digital skills.
In this news item, we share some key promises from each party.
Read about parties’ promises for adult literacy.
How can you get involved?
* Sources:
Central Statistics Office (CSO) (2013). PIAAC 2012: Survey Results for Ireland from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies.
Cedefop (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training) (2020). Cedefop Country Fact Sheet: Adult Population with Potential for Upskilling and Reskilling: Ireland.
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