About NBPC

The NBPC is an integral part of the services provided by St. Joseph's School for the Visually Impaired in Drumcondra, Dublin, Ireland. It was established to meet the educational needs of children with a visual impairment attending either mainstream or special education throughout the primary and secondary school curriculum. The NBPC was officially opened on the 1st of September 2000 and is funded by the Department of Education and Science.

It is a national service which provides access to educational materials by transcriptions through a range of formats accessible for children with a visual impairment. The formats currently catered for are: Braille, tactile diagrams, Large Print and text-only files on computer disk. All transcriptions follow recognised European and international guidelines.

The NBPC is linked with universities, Assistive Technology providers and Braille production centres abroad to ensure the quality and continual upgrading of services.

The service is a demand-only and free service, open to all children with a registered visual impairment in the Republic of Ireland.

The NBPC started in 2000 with 2 full-time, 2 part-time staff and 35 clients. Now we have 9 full-time and 5 part-time staff, 6 Braille proofreaders and a total of 210 clients in both special and mainstream schools. The staff are chosen for their expertise in various areas, such as mathematics and foreign languages and are all trained to Standard English Braille transcriber level. The progress has been very substantial but we are always happy to hear how we can further improve the service.

You can contact us through our Feedback form via the Contact Us page.