- Read more: Decision-making regarding transitions to residential care for people with intellectual disabilities
People with intellectual disabilities are living longer often with ageing family caregivers. As needs increase and community services remain limited, families face pressure that can lead to emergency residential placements. This policy brief examines the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities and their family caregivers as they seek residential care in Ireland and makes policy…
- Read more: Strengthening Ireland’s Response to Homelessness: The Case for Reviewing Ireland’s National Definition of Homelessness
This policy brief is informed by evidence from the Problem Phase Living Lab sessions undertaken in Ireland as part of the COMHOM project, an EU-funded initiative examining responses to homelessness. Evidence gathered from frontline service providers identifies significant gaps in the recognition and measurement of hidden homelessness within current policy and data collection systems. The…
- Read more: Strengthening Ireland’s Response to Homelessness: The Case for Improving Digital Integration and Data Coordination in Ireland
This policy brief argues that strengthening homelessness responses in Ireland requires a more integrated and coordinated digital infrastructure, supported by standardised approaches to data collection, monitoring and evaluation. A unified and interoperable system would enhance the accuracy and completeness of homelessness data, improve service coordination, and support more effective policy development.
- Read more: Addressing Adolescent Mental Health in Ireland
This policy brief presents findings from surveys of more than 20,000 adolescents across Ireland that tracked changes in mental health between 2018 and 2023. Policy implications are discussed for the education and health sectors
- Read more: Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: Current barriers to diagnosis and treatment
Introduction Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) is a distinct mood disorder associated with symptoms such as depressed mood, irritability, anxiety, sleep disturbance, difficulty concentrating and suicidal thoughts in the two weeks before a menstrual period (APA 2013; Prasad 2021). PMDD is severe enough to affect a person’s functioning, relationships, and quality of life (APA 2013). It…
- Read more: Barriers to Environmental Policy Implementation: Stakeholder perceptions in the context of Ireland
Ireland’s environmental ambitions are consistently undermined by five systemic barriers, from capacity constraints to policy incoherence. This brief distils insights from 34 senior stakeholders and outlines practical strategies to strengthen environmental policy implementation across government, summarising work recently published in the Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning.
- Read more: A National Human Biomonitoring for Ireland (HBM4IRE) programme feasibility study with ambitions for investigating chemical exposures among the population
Human biomonitoring is described as the ‘gold standard’ for chemical risk assessment as it can measure the systemic availability of human exposures to chemicals from all exposure sources and routes by analysing biological samples. This policy brief outlines the key findings and recommendations from the EPA-funded Human Biomonitoring for Ireland (HBM4IRE) project that examined the…
- Read more: Towards Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Energy Trading: A Policy Pathway for Ireland’s Decentralised Energy Future
This brief proposes a phased roadmap to enable P2P energy trading in Ireland, examining the regulatory, technical, and community-based steps needed to support a more decentralised electricity system in Ireland
- Read more: Wellbeing in Children’s School Lives – The Importance of Belonging
Framed by Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model of wellbeing and OECD indicators (OECD 2019; 2024), this policy brief concentrates on the ‘R’ for Relationships (Belonging) within the PERMA framework. Drawing insights from the comprehensive report, this policy brief underscores the importance of relationships and belonging which emerged as key indicators of wellbeing.
- Read more: Children’s climate participation and voice: Games as a way to amplify children’s participatory rights in Ireland
This policy brief was developed from the findings of a mixed-methods study to understand children’s experiences of climate participation in Ireland. It calls for the opportunities for children to engage and share their ideas with climate decision-makers to be made more accessible and child-friendly, and shows how gamified participation is a viable alternative to formal…
