15 Apr 2015, 15:52
The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children will tomorrow address the policy approaches to intellectual disability and ageing. The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (IDS-TILDA) project is a large-scale, nationally representative, longitudinal study on ageing in Ireland, which includes a component on older people with an intellectual disability.
15 April 2015
Professor Mary McCarron's team is carrying out the most comprehensive study in ageing in persons with intellectual disability ever carried out in Ireland, and the first of its kind internationally.
Prof McCarron is expected to explain to the Committee that people with intellectual disabilities are now living much longer. This has significant implications for policies to support their quality of life, including policies on community living.
Committee Chairman, Jerry Buttimer TD says: “Life expectancy among people with an intellectual disability has considerably lengthened in recent decades. This is an extremely positive development. Tomorrow’s meeting will be an opportunity to consider how the quality of life for those with an intellectual disability can be safeguarded and strengthened as they grow older. As well as outlining some of the results of the TILDA survey so far, Prof McCarron will discuss how health policies can best support this cohort of older people and their families.”
The meeting will commence at 9:30 am tomorrow Thursday 16 April in Committee Room 2, LH 2000.
Committee proceedings can be followed live here.
Committee proceedings can also be viewed on the move, through the Houses of the Oireachtas Smartphone App, available for Apple and Android devices.
Media enquiries to:
Paul Hand,
Communications Unit,
Houses of the Oireachtas,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2
P: +3531 618 4484
M: +353 87 694 9926
paul.hand@oireachtas.ie
Committee Membership:
Deputies: Jerry Buttimer (Chair), Catherine Byrne, Ciara Conway (Vice-Chair), Regina Doherty, Robert Dowds, Peter M Fitzpatrick, Seamus Healy, Billy Kelleher, Eamonn Maloney, Clare Daly, Sandra McLellan, Dan Neville, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Robert Troy
Senators: Colm Burke, John Crown, John Gilroy, Imelda Henry, Marc Mac Sharry and Jillian Van Turnhout