The Economic and Social Research Institute’s (ESRI) capacity review report on Older People’s care, published in June 2025, projects future demand for older people’s services in Ireland to 2040, indicating that a substantial increase in capacity will be required to meet the demands of our growing and ageing population.
The ESRI’s demand and capacity analysis will be invaluable to the Department of Health, and HSE, in advancing evidence-based capacity planning, which is responsive, agile, and meets the needs of our increasing older population.
The Government is committed to continued investment in healthcare infrastructure which supports the highest quality care for our older population and to utilising planning and resource allocation measures as a lever to reduce regional inequalities in long-term residential care supply.
Current investment includes the ongoing Community Nursing Unit programme, a major capital infrastructure programme which was launched to ensure that up to 90 of our public Community Nursing Units and Community Hospitals would be refurbished or replaced to ensure the best quality environments for our older people, and to meet HIQA standards. The focus of this programme is primarily on ensuring that current bed stock is maintained. 52 of the projects in the CNU Programme have reached construction completion, with a strong pipeline of projects progressing at various stages through the project lifecycle.
The 2025 Programme for Government commits to build more public nursing home beds and include dementia specific provision across all new Community Nursing Units. In this context, the Department of Health, alongside the HSE, is currently developing a new Long-Term Residential Care Additional Capacity Plan.
