Advances in healthcare and medicine have enabled people to look forward to longer lives and healthy, fulfilling retirements. An individual’s right to age healthily, and the changing needs as ageing takes place are described by both national and international policy. The United Nations Principles for Older Persons contains suggested principles for UN member states to adopt to enable their older citizens to realise their right to age healthily (United Nations, 1991). These principles of independence, participation, care, self-fulfilment and dignity also form the backbone of current Irish policy on healthy ageing (National Council on Ageing and Older People, 2004).

Such policy is inclusive, and people with intellectual disabilities should stand to benefit from it, particularly when one considers that for the most part people with intellectual disabilities share the same age-related concerns as the general population, such as retirement, bereavement, the need for quality healthcare and the need for suitable accommodation (American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR), 2004; Janicki & Dalton, 1999).