Elder Abuse Widespread

By Paul Mulholland, Irish Medical News

February 8, 2008

Ireland

Recent figures on elder abuse in Ireland released by the HSE represent only a fraction of the cases in Ireland, according to a spokesperson for Age Action.

According to the figures, the HSE’s elder abuse officers dealt with 927 cases last year.

As the majority of the 26 elder abuse officers have been in their posts for less than 12 months, Mr Eamon Timmins, Age Action’s Head of Advocacy and Communications said the scale of the problem is likely to be much greater.

“Age Action had previously used the results of international studies, which showed that between three per cent and five per cent of the older population have been victims of elder abuse,” Mr Timmins told IMN.

“Applying this to Ireland, would mean that between 14,000 and 23,000 older people would have experienced elder abuse. The figures released show only a fraction of the problem. Because of the nature of the abuse, much of it goes unreported. Many people who are abused are afraid to speak out.”

However, Mr Timmins welcomed the release of figures for shining a light on what is an unreported problem. “They help break the taboo,” he said. “The figures show that this is a problem in Ireland. Hopefully, it will encourage more people to report cases of abuse. It’s hard to believe this is the first time we have statistics on elder abuse in this country.”

In particular, one figure that Mr Timmins noted was that while 92 per cent of alleged abusers in 2007 were family members, just 16 per cent of the cases were referred to the officers by other family members.

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