Family care in Ireland: Carers, recipients and projections of need

The growing and ageing population in Ireland will result in a significant increase in the need for a range of health and social care services in the coming years. Services used predominantly by older people, in particular long-term care, are projected to experience the largest increases. In Ireland, family carers are an integral component of the long-term care system, providing the majority of such care and facilitating many people to remain within their own home and community as they age. Despite the clear reliance on family care in Ireland, relatively little is known about current receipt of such care or potential future needs. 

There are two main objectives of this report: (i) to profile carers and recipients of family care in Ireland and (ii) to project future care needs, given the growing and ageing population.  

Two datasets – the Healthy Ireland Survey and the Census Longitudinal Dataset – were used to profile family carers in Ireland.  

The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) includes several questions on the provision and receipt of care among those aged 50 and over, and was used to profile the characteristics of care recipients. It was also used to create two baseline metrics of need for care that formed the basis of the projection analysis. The two metrics were the proportion of age and sex groupings reporting: 

(i)    difficulties with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL);
(ii)    difficulties with ADLs and IADLs and receiving family care.

The projections of need for care were based on the ESRI’s healthcare projection tool, the Hippocrates model. The Hippocrates model projects the future demand for a particular service or sector based on the use of the service in a base year, while incorporating assumptions on how demand may change in the future. In this analysis the base year is 2022, and the projection period is 2023–2040.  

Both sets of baseline estimates (those with difficulty with an ADL/IADL and those with difficulty with an ADL/IADL and in receipt of family care) were projected based on assumptions on the size and age structure of the population and healthy ageing.