CHALLENGES FACING BY THE ELDERLY PEOPLE IN IRELAND

Challenges and Barriers Facing by the Elderly People in Ireland



Challenges and Barriers Facing by the Elderly People in Ireland

Introduction

The paper intends to explore about the challenges and barriers which are facing by the elderly people in Ireland. The paper also attempts to highlight the impact of some of the challenges over the positive ageing. The statistics indicate that more than 1.4 million people live on the Ireland are of and above of sixty years (O'Sullivan, 2011). The Statistics indicate that the older people are the most rapidly growing segment of the population of entire Europe. Moreover, Ireland comes amongst the top ten countries of the world due to its increasing socio economic factors specifically the factor of growing life expectancy as per the rankings of United Nations Human Development Index of 2004 (National Council on Ageing and Older People, 2005). The segment of older people also demands the equal share in the human rights and access to every part of the society as compared to the other population segments. However, despite this fact, the older people happen to face numerous challenges in even the most basic areas of the life only due to their elderly ages. In addition to it, they are also the most striving population who are the greater risk of poverty due to their retired as compared to the general population (Walsh, 2010).

The situation of ageing people in Ireland has now become much more manageable due to the recent prosperity and efforts of government towards privileging this population through the various councils and programs. The vast population of older people is cared for the receipt of high quality, safe, and supportive environment. The government of Ireland is actively engaged in developing the positive ageing through the social construct of ageing, age proofing, and age friendly society. in this concern, there are numerous agencies that are collaboratively working with the government to strengthen this population segment of the society through the programs such as age action, research on ageing, successful ageing, and etc (Connolly et al., 2012).

Discussion

Population ageing is not unique to Ireland but it is the international phenomenon which only varies from one country to another. The population of people with the older age of sixty five is extensively increasing in the Ireland which has also been indicated through the study of 2011 census. The census revealed that there is more than 11.7 per cent of the total population that comes under the ageing population which makes up around 535,393 people of more than sixty years old in Ireland (Central Statistics Office, 2012). The National Council on Ageing and Older People (NCAOP) has speculated that the proportion of ageing population is likely to increase up to 15.3 per cent by the end of 2021. Moreover, NCAOP has also projected the steep growth in the number of ageing people aged up to and more than eighty years to around 137,305 by ...