Dr. Laura O'Philbin:

There are 64,000 people living with dementia in Ireland and that number is set to more than double. The reasons are multifaceted. One of key reasons is that the general population across the world is increasing but there are also several dementia risk factors. However, there are ways to reduce a person's risk and prevent dementia over time. We are increasingly becoming more aware of those factors. In lower and middle-income countries, as dementia is just coming out, people are being diagnosed more. These are the key reasons the number of people living with dementia is increasing. Unfortunately, the incidence of younger onset of dementia is also on the rise.

Between 2,900 and 4,300 people live with dementia in Ireland. Members may notice that I keep saying "around" rather than "approximately" but that is because, unfortunately, we do not have a dementia registry here in Ireland. Dementia registries are essential for planning services, ensuring quality and making sure that we support people living with dementia in the right way. The ASI has supported work towards a registry since 2018, as far as I am aware. We now have research that was commissioned by our national dementia service so we know what a minimum data set should like and we know what we need to do to set up a dementia registry but, unfortunately, we think that work has now been delayed to the HSE's hiring freeze.