Collinear laser spectroscopy has been performed on doubly charged ions of radioactive yttrium in order to study the isotope shifts of the 294.6-nm 5s2S1/2→5p2P1/2 line. The potential of such an alkali-metal-like transition to improve the reliability of atomic-field-shift and mass-shift factor calculations, and hence the extraction of nuclear mean-square radii, is discussed. Production of yttrium ion beams for such studies is available at the IGISOL IV Accelerator Laboratory, Jyväskylä, Finland. This newly recommissioned facility is described here in relation to the on-line study of accelerator-produced short-lived isotopes using collinear laser spectroscopy and application of the technique to doubly charged ions.