Publication
Members of the Commission on Care for Older People
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
Front row left to right: Prof. Alan Barrett, Prof. Mary McCarron, Ita Healy, Dr Lucinda Dockeray.
Back row left to right: Catherine McGuigan, Prof. Eamon O’Shea, Dr Emer Ahern, Sean Moynihan, Cathy Reynolds.
Missing from the Photo: Dr Jonathan Cylus, Prof. Christopher Nugent, Prof. David Smith.
Professor Alan Barrett is the Chief Executive Officer of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
Professor Barrett received his Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University in 1994 and joined the ESRI that year. He was seconded to the Department of Finance from 2001–2003 and to Trinity College Dublin from 2011–2013. With research interests in the areas of labour economics, population economics and macroeconomics, he has published in journals including Labour Economics, the Journal of Population Economics, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, the Industrial and Labor Relations Review and the British Journal of Industrial Relations. In addition, he is co-author of The Fiscal System and the Polluter Pays Principle: A Case-study of Ireland (1997). From 2005–2010 he was a lead author of the ESRI’s Quarterly Economic Commentary.
Professor Barrett is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Research Fellow with the Institute for Labour Economics (IZA) in Bonn, and an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin. He was a member of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council from 2011–2015 and an ex officio member of the Climate Change Advisory Council from 2015–2021. He chaired the National Economic Dialogue from 2015–2022 and was a member of the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council from 2021–2024. He is a frequent contributor to discussions in the media on economic matters.
Catherine McGuigan is the Chief Officer of the Age Friendly Ireland—a national shared service hosted by Meath County Council on behalf of the local government sector. Anchored in the WHO’s Global Age Friendly Programme, Age Friendly Ireland is focused on ensuring responsiveness to the needs of Ireland’s ageing population at local level and is operational across all 31 local authorities in Ireland.
Across a 25-year career, Catherine has wide-ranging experience and expertise in providing transformative policy responses in the areas of assistive and smart technologies, housing, independent living, health, spatial planning and the built environment, transportation, economic development, community services, civic participation, social inclusion, diversity and information and communications.
As Chief Officer of Age Friendly Ireland, Catherine serves as a principal advisor at strategic level, engaging with key leaders across the civil, public, private and community and voluntary sectors, and consulting democratically with citizens to reshape the way in which services are delivered.
Dr. Emer Ahern is a Consultant Geriatrician in Cork University Hospital and was appointed the Health Service Executive (HSE) National Clinical Advisor and Group Lead for Older Persons in May 2022. She qualified from University College Cork and completed her postgraduate and specialist training in Ireland and Merseyside respectively.
Focusing on the delivery of evidence-based healthcare in age-friendly systems—and informed by the strong belief that healthcare services must be re-designed to deliver what older adults want, value, and need—Dr. Ahern developed and led the Irish Hip Fracture Database. In addition, she sponsors the rehabilitation workstream for the Major Trauma Program and led the pioneer sites for the Integrated Care Programme for Older Persons in Kilkenny and Cork.
Dr. Ahern is the current President of the Irish Gerontological Society.
Dr. Cylus is the Head of the London Hubs of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and a Senior Research Fellow at LSE Health at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is also Senior Health Economist in the World Health Organization (WHO) Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing.
Dr. Cylus’s research focuses on health systems, with a particular emphasis on health financing policy, health economics and health system performance. He has worked on these topics in a number of countries in Europe and beyond, as well as with the European Commission, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the WHO. Dr. Cylus is also interested in the impact of social policies and other social determinants on health.
Prior to joining the European Observatory, Dr. Cylus was an economist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the United States. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Johns Hopkins University, and an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. from the LSE.
Dr. Lucinda Dockeray is a full-time GP and Principal of Dodder Park Medical, the practice she established in 2010. She is also the Director of Care of the Older Person Course, Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), which she developed in 2022, and a GP Trainer with the Trinity College Dublin/HSE Training Scheme. She graduated from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1999 and undertook specialist GP Training in Edinburgh.
Lucinda has extensive experience in the residential care setting. She served as the lead general practitioner to residents of New Lodge Nursing Home and, from 2011–2023, as the Medical Officer to Bloomfield Hospital—a Mental Health Commission (MHC)-approved centre for patients with severe and enduring mental illness, neuropsychiatric disorders, and dementia.
Lucinda held the position of Chair of the ICGP Nursing and Care Home Special Interest Group in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic emerged. Providing leadership throughout this period, she represented the ICGP on the COVID-19 Nursing Home Expert Panel Reference Group and was a member of the HSE Community Support Team Subgroup, HSE Nursing Home Governance Working Group, HSE Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control (AMRIC) Antimicrobial Stewardship Advisory Group, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) ICT Enablement of Older Persons Services Group, and the ICGP Educational Governance Committee.
Ita Healy is the Chairperson of the National Network of Older People’s Councils and the Chairperson of Meath’s Older People’s Council. Established under the aegis of Age Friendly Ireland, the Older People’s Councils are representative groups of older people which have been convened in every local authority to enable older people to raise concerns at a local level. Comprised of representatives from each of the 31 Older People’s Councils, the National Network of Older People’s Councils convenes tri-annually to discuss policy issues of national significance.
Professor Mary McCarron, Ph.D., RNID, RGN, BNS, FAAN, FTCD, is Professor of Ageing and Intellectual Disability, Director of the Trinity Centre for Ageing and Intellectual Disability (TCAID), and Executive Director of the National Intellectual Disability Memory Service. She has held many senior leadership roles in Trinity College Dublin, including Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery.
With over 500 publications in the area of ageing and intellectual disability, Professor McCarron is the founder and Principal Investigator for IDS-TILDA—the longitudinal comparative study on ageing in persons with intellectual disability. Professor McCarron also led a longitudinal cohort study of dementia in people with Down syndrome spanning over 25 years and founded Ireland's National Intellectual Disability Memory Service. She is Principal Investigator of the Health Research Board (HRB)-funded PPI (patient and public involvement) Ignite Programme at Trinity College Dublin and received the inaugural HRB Impact Award. In addition, she is the Irish Lead on the Horizon 21 Consortium working on clinical and trial outcome measures for dementia in individuals with Down syndrome.
In addition to serving on a number of hospital and intellectual disability service boards, Professor McCarron has been a key advisor on ageing and policy issues to various governmental and other groups at a national and international level and a governance board member of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD).
Seán Moynihan is Chief Executive Officer of ALONE—a national organisation that enables older people to age at home as well as providing befriending services, advocacy, and support. Seán has worked in the NGO sector for over 25 years, previously serving as Head of Housing and Director of Service for the Simon Community and as a project manager and consultant with a number of NGOs.
Seán has been involved in multiple national oversight groups and has played a role in influencing social and health policies for older people in respect of housing, loneliness, and ageing at home. He has played a key role in advocating and developing services for, and with, older people, particularly those who are medically or socially vulnerable and whose voices and views often go unheard.
Chris Nugent, B.Eng., Ph.D., PgCUT, MIEEE, MIET, SFHEA, is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and currently the Head of the School of Computing at Ulster University as well as being Director of the Pervasive Computing Research Centre. He is also the Co-Principal Investigator of the Connected Health Innovation Centre, Principal Investigator at Ulster for the PwC Advanced Research and Engineering Centre, and co-investigator for the BT Ireland Innovation Centre.
Chris holds a B.Eng. in Electronic Systems (1995) and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering (1998) from the University of Ulster, by whom he was awarded a Senior Distinguished Research Fellowship in 2016. In 2015 he became a Fellow of the U.K.’s Higher Education Academy, of which he became a Senior Fellow in 2023. He has held visiting Professorships at Halmstad University and the University of Florence and is currently a visiting Professor in Pervasive and Mobile Computing at Lulea Technical University and a visiting Professor in Computing at Shandong Jianzhu University.
Chris’s research interests encompass the development and evaluation of technologies to support pervasive healthcare within smart environments. Specifically, he has undertaken research on mobile-based reminding solutions, activity recognition, behaviour modelling, and technology-adoption modelling. Chris has been the Principal Investigator of a number of projects funded variously by the U.K.’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Northern Ireland’s HSC R&D Division and InvestNI, the European Union, DEL, the U.S.’s Alzheimer’s Association, and the AAL Programme. Since 2008 Chris has served as an Associate Editor of the ‘Healthcare Information Systems Theme’ of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Engineering Medicine and Biology Conference. He was the outgoing Programme Chair for the Technology Professional Interest Area of the Alzheimer’s Association from 2021–2023 and, since 2016, has been the Co-Workshop Chair for the Connected Summer School.
Eamon O’Shea is a Personal Professor of Economics in the School of Business and Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic and Social Research on Dementia at University of Galway, where he was the founding Director of the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology.
He holds an M.A. in Economics from University College Dublin (UCD), an M.Sc. in Health Economics from the University of York, and a Ph.D. from the University of Leicester. His research has been published in a range of journals including the Journal of Health Economics, Social Science and Medicine, Age and Ageing, Ageing and Society, Health Policy, the British Medical Journal and the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Professor O’Shea has also authored or co-authored 30 books/policy reports mainly in the fields of ageing, dementia, and social policy.
Professor O’Shea’s work has been influential in setting the agenda for people with dementia in Ireland. In 1999 he was the principal author of the National Council on Ageing and Older People’s Action Plan for Dementia. He served as Chair of the National Economic and Social Forum Expert Group on Care of the Elderly from 2005–2006 and co-authored the Creating Excellence in Dementia Care report in 2012. He was also a member of the Implementation Group for the Irish National Dementia Strategy. From 2015–2020 Professor O’Shea held a national Research Leader Award in Dementia funded by the HRB.
Cathy joined the Board of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI) in 2021. Prior to that she served on their Advocacy and Public Affairs Committee—a role she continues to perform along with serving on the ASI Fundraising Advisory Committee. Cathy has a personal interest in the care of older people, and dementia in particular, borne out of her experience of caring for loved ones in her own family.
Cathy holds a B.A. in Economics and Politics and a Master’s in Business Studies (MBS) from UCD. Over the course of her career, Cathy has held many executive positions in the field of communications and public relations, before eventually leaving the workplace to care for her family.
David Smith is Associate Professor of Healthcare Ethics in the RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland) University of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he is the Director of the M.Sc. in Health Care Ethics and Law. He also lectures on healthcare ethics in Trinity College Dublin and UCD. He is an Ethics Consultant to the Clinical Ethics Committee of Bon Secours Health System, Ireland; AVISTA Services Clinical Ethics Committee (Daughters of Charity Intellectual Disability Services Ethics Committee); and Ethical Advisor to St Vincent’s Healthcare Group.
Professor Smith has served as a member of the Irish Council for Bioethics; the Department of Health’s Pandemic Ethics Advisory Group; the Bon Secours Health System Ethics Subcommittee on COVID-19; the Mercy Care South Public Juridic Person Committee; the Expert Reference Group for Clinical Audit of Interval Cancer in the Screened Population; the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists (ISCP)’s Professional Procedures/Ethics Standing Committee; the National Committee for the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes; and Beaumont University Hospital’s Living Donor Ethics Committee, in addition to serving as Ethical Advisor to the Hermitage Clinic Medicinal Cannabis Expert Reference Group. He is currently a member of the National Advisory Committee on Bioethics Ethics; the Ethics Working Group of the Irish Association of Palliative Care Consultants; the Cervical Check Interval Cancer Audit Implementation Group; the Ethics Working Party of the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice and the European Network for Research Ethics Committees (EUREC).
He was recently appointed a Deputy Chairperson of the National Research Ethics Committee for Clinical Trials and is a member of a number of research ethics committees and scientific and ethical advisory committees for H2020 projects. He is the Ethical Advisor to the European Vaccine Initiative.