Longer, Better Lives for All

A New Vision for Ireland

By Denise Charlton

One in three children born in Ireland today is expected to live to 100. Once exceptional, today it is a milestone which reflects incredible advances in medicine, technology, living standards and economic progress. This should be cause for celebration and joy. Yet, longer lives are often presented as a burden or challenge, creating pressures on health services, pensions, families and public finances.

While these pressures are real and must be addressed, they should not dominate how we think about longer life expectancy.

Living longer offers an opportunity to reimagine and reshape society, where every generation flourishes.

The 100 Year Lives Project

The 100 Year Lives Project is a major participative research initiative exploring how Ireland can adapt and thrive as more people live longer lives. It is not simply about adding more years to life, but increasing the years people spend in good health, with agency, connection, security and purpose.

Combining expert interviews, citizen workshops, polling and community consultations, the project asks how we can move beyond traditional ideas of ageing and build a society that supports longer, better lives for all.

Cradle to Grave

Longer lives is not simply a conversation about older people or the later stages of life. It is about how we support health, learning, security, connection and purpose from childhood onwards.

In fact, preparing for 100-year lives begins before birth and continues throughout life: supporting maternal and infant health; giving children an equal start; helping teenagers build resilience, relationships and connection in their communities; and enabling adults of every age to keep learning, adapting, caring, contributing and finding purpose.

Our ambition must be longer, healthier and more connected lives for all, not only for those with the resources to navigate the opportunities and challenges that a longer life may bring.

From Ageing to Longevity

This Project invites us to shift our thinking towards positive ageing, better health across the life course, multi-stage lives, shared responsibility and contribution at every age.

The research proposes a national mission organised around three connected priorities.

Connected Wellbeing: supporting physical and mental health, housing, nourishment, nature and social connection from infancy onwards.

Lifelong Opportunities: creating access to education, employment, reskilling, mentoring, caring support, flexibility and financial resilience throughout life.

Active Citizenship: strengthening belonging, agency and purpose through community participation, democracy, leadership, kindness and environmental action.

Ireland has an opportunity to redesign systems, communities and public policy around a future in which many more people live into their nineties and beyond. In doing so, Ireland can establish itself as a global leader in longevity innovation.

Philanthropy’s Role

Community Foundation Ireland is proud to champion this agenda-setting research, and recognises the important role philanthropy can play in delivering systemic change.

Philanthropy can create space to examine complex questions, bring different voices together and develop ideas that may not fit easily within short funding windows or policy cycles.

It can support research, test new approaches and build the evidence needed for long-term, sustainable change.

At the Community Foundation, our role is to mobilise strategic philanthropy to advance equality, strengthen communities, and protect climate and nature.

Denise Charlton is Chief Executive of Community Foundation Ireland.

Full Report

Read the full report and recommendations Here.