Catherine McGuigan

Catherine leads Age Friendly Ireland, a national shared service, hosted by Meath County Council on behalf of the local government sector in Ireland. This municipality led national programme is anchored in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Age Friendly Programme and is operational across all 31 local authorities in Ireland. Her role is strategically focussed on ensuring Ireland is responsive to the increasing needs of Ireland’s ageing population and adopting effective local policy approaches to respond to demographic ageing. This process is based on multi stakeholder engagement and over the last 15 years Catherine has made significant progress in leading the implementation of innovative practices that have responded to the needs of an ageing society. Catherine has specific experience and expertise in providing transformative policy responses in the areas of housing, health, spatial planning and the built environment, transportation, economic development, community services, civic participation, social inclusion, diversity and information and communications. Catherine is a principal advisor at strategic level, engaging with key leaders across civil, public, private and community and voluntary sector and consulting democratically with citizens to reshape the way in which services are delivered. Her expertise lies in strategic planning and promoting collaborative approaches to effective service reform. Spanning a 25-year career, Catherine’s previous backgrounds involved working across a number of sectors with a focus on specific fields of expertise such as assistive and smart technologies, housing, independent living and construction and community services among others. Catherine has garnered extensive knowledge of the issues effecting older people and how we plan for demographic change.