This chapter focuses on the long-term care policy for older people in Ireland. Taking a historical perspective, it demonstrates how the long-term care policy for older people bears all the hallmarks of neoliberal government, in which the state has ceded provision of services to the private home and residential care sector, whilst retaining a regulatory role through bodies such as the Health Information and Quality Authority. As the chapter argues, older people’s care increasingly hinges on the ability of older people to make the ‘right’ ageing choices, that is, to remain active and independent, and to act as citizen-consumers, which in turn, allows the state to relieve some of its own burden by shifting responsibility for care management onto older people themselves.
LONG TERM CARE POLICY AND POLITICS AT THE STATE AND NATIONAL LEVELS
