Designing Homes for an Ageing Population

Improved health and longevity in Ireland will lead to significant advances in how long people choose to work into old age, and presents huge opportunities for new thinking about positive attitudes towards ageing. As discussed in this report, this will place demands on Ireland’s social welfare and pensions system, and – without reform of housing policy the need for nursing homes and acute hospital care will increase. A high level view of the most recent census data reveals that rural areas of Ireland have a higher proportion of older people than urban areas. This, as this report will show, has an enormous bearing on the range and types of support which are essential to older people in order for them to remain in their own homes, such as transport and community health care. It will not be economically possible to provide these services to a dispersed population and we need to increase the provision of suitable housing in existing communities.