Neurological Alliance Ireland has marked this year’s World Brain Day (22.07.2025) with an event in Peamount Healthcare Dublin, where its members highlighted to attending Ministers and TDs that Ireland has less than half of the neurorehabilitation beds needed for its population. Forty neurological charities came together to call on the Government to deliver on its Programme for Government pledges to neurorehabilitation in the upcoming Budget.

Ireland has a 58% shortfall in the number of neurorehabilitation beds for patients recovering from conditions such as stroke, acquired brain injury and those living with progressive conditions like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. The Programme for Government includes a commitment to develop more specialist inpatient neurorehabilitation beds in response to this critical shortage.

Speaking at the event in Peamount Healthcare, CEO of the Neurological Alliance of Ireland (NAI), Magdalen Rogers, said:

“Over 16% of people in Ireland are currently living with a neurological condition. Behind these statistics are the individuals and their families struggling to come to terms with the effects of a neurological condition and they have a huge fear that they won’t get access to the specialist care they need.

“A national framework published in 2019 committed to ensuring a minimum of 306 beds across the country, six years on we still have a shortage of 175 beds. Our recent survey of 700 people living with a neurological condition across Ireland showed a staggering 76% had not been able to access inpatient neurorehabilitation when they needed it.”

Anne Marie Leonard, 37, was working as a carer in Edenderry, Co. Offaly when she started experiencing symptoms in 2023. She underwent rehabilitation for an unexplained condition at Peamount Healthcare in 2023. Speaking at the event, she said:

“Without Peamount I’d still be in a wheelchair and probably in a nursing home because I needed so much support to even have a shower. Learning to do everyday tasks again was so challenging, after being at Peamount for a while, a member of staff brought me to a kitchen to make scrambled eggs – a task that might have taken 30 seconds before I got ill – it took 30 minutes, but I did it and with their help I continued to improve.

“Life is different now, but the genuine friends and family members in my life stuck by me and kept me buoyed up. While I was in hospital my best friend had a baby, Fionn, and she and I joked that it was a competition to see which of us would walk first!

“I’m so grateful to the team at Peamount Healthcare for their continued support, and I’m thankful I can come here and tell everyone the difference the neurorehabilitation bed made to me and my story.”

Tanya King, CEO of Peamount Healthcare said:

“As the regional site for HSE Dublin Midlands for the development of inpatient neurorehabilitation, Peamount Healthcare opened 10 beds at the end of 2020. Since then, over 400 patients have received the specialist inpatient rehabilitation that they need. Working with our community and charity partner organisations we can ensure a safe transition from the acute setting to home and support patients to remain there.”

Regional investment needed in Budget 2026

The NAI are calling for investment in 45 beds in the upcoming Budget to begin to address the shortfall of neurorehabilitation beds across the Midlands and South West.

The NAI highlighted at the World Brain Day event, that gaps in neurorehabilitation services across Ireland mean a quarter of those surveyed in its recent ‘The Right Care in the Right Place’ report have never been able to access neurorehabilitation.

A high proportion of the 700 individuals who responded to the survey also reported being unable to access neurorehabilitation services in the past 12 months:

• 78% in the North West
• 73% in the South East
• 62% in Dublin
• 58% in the Midlands

In addition to its call to address the shortage of neurorehabilitation beds, the NAI is also seeking investment in four community neurorehabilitation teams for the North West, North Dublin/North East, South East and Midlands.

The NAI represents over forty charities advocating for the rights of over 860,000 people in Ireland living with a neurological condition.

For more information, visit www.nai.ie.