Moving Ahead: Factors contributing to successful transition of people with intellectual disabilities from congregated to community-based residential options in two regions in Ireland

This report details the findings of a research project entitled Moving Ahead. The project aimed to examine factors that contribute to the successful transfer of people with intellectual disabilities from congregated to community-based living in two regional areas in Ireland. It was undertaken by a team of researchers from Ireland and the UK, led by Dr. Christine Lineha

Mapping the National Disability Policy Landscape

This report was undertaken as part of the Moving Ahead project, a research study that aimed to examine the role of factors that contribute to the successful transfer of residents with intellectual disabilities from congregated to community-based living arrangements in two regional areas in Ireland. The study was undertaken by a team of researchers from Ireland and the UK, led by Trinity College Dublin

Living Arrangement Options for People with Intellectual Disabilities: A Scoping Review

This is one of a pair of reports prepared for the Moving Ahead Project. Its partner policy review, Mapping the National Intellectual Disability Landscape (Linehan et al., 2014), outlines current disability services, practices and policies in Ireland. This rapid scoping review provides a brief overview of national and international research exploring living arrangement options for people with intellectual disabilities

Foresight – A significant input to policy

The coronavirus pandemic has brought an acute shock to the global economy. The immediate challenge for governments is to start the process of economic recovery while protecting the health of citizens. The pandemic also poses fundamental longer-term questions about what societies across the world most value, how they should prepare for future public health shocks, and what should be the future social contract between governments and citizens. Add to this a possible no trade agreement Brexit and the impact of climate change and you have ‘a perfect storm’. Advances in science and technology, such as artificial intelligence and the digital economy, offer both threats (e.g. unemployment) and opportunities (e.g. new services and better jobs) in this difficult societal context. How are we on the island of Ireland going to address these economic and social threats and opportunities? Foresight is one tool that seems particularly suited to the current challenge

Fostering Innovation in Irish Innovation Policy

Over the past decade or so there have been many radical changes in the Irish national system of innovation and how it is administered. To some extent these administrative changes were a consequence of the financial crisis and the subsequent need to control public expenditure. This paper argues that it is now time to reassess these changes and to consider if the innovation system and its governance is fit for purpose for the challenging times ahead. The management of the Irish system of innovation is now radically out of line with systems in peer, small developed countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland. A particular problem is the absence of any independent mechanism for providing expert policy advice to the Government and its agencies on the various aspects of innovation. In large part, this is a consequence of the 2014 government decision to dissolve Forfás (and, with it, the Advisory Council for Science, Technology & Innovation) and to transfer its innovation-related staff into the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. However, the Forfás functions around strategy and analysis have now been so diluted that, for the first time since the 1960s, Ireland does not have a vital element of the national innovation system – a mechanism to provide a continuously updated source of expert policy advice and evaluation on all aspects of innovation. The main recommendation in this paper is creating a new-style Irish Innovation Council that will take a holistic approach to the formulation and evaluation of policy. A Council drawn from business, academia and government/public service would be in keeping with the approach previously and successfully adopted. Such a Council would need expert secretarial support. A detailed argument for this and the functions of such a body are provided in the paper. Other recommendations are: conducting a Foresight exercise and commissioning an OECD Review of Irish Innovation Policy

Public views and recommendations on the use of linked data for research: preliminary results from a public deliberation engagement

Introduction The use of linked data for research is increasing, including in complexity of requests. Rules around access to and use of data necessarily trade-off risks related to privacy to achieve social benefits. Including informed and civic-minded public recommendations that consider different perspectives on privacy and benefit will improve related policy. Objectives and Approach Population Data BC is conducting a deliberative public engagement regarding the use of complex linked data for research. Members of the public will be provided with written materials and hear speakers outlining considerations from multiple perspectives in data access and use, including benefits for health research, risks to privacy, and implications for disability and minority groups. Participants in the deliberation will then discuss questions about the use of linked data and ideas around principles for that use in small and large groups, and develop recommendations for data sharing policies. Results We will be sharing our preliminary analysis of the public deliberation results at the conference. The public deliberation encourages the participants to develop policy recommendations that respect diversity of perspectives while negotiating constructive advice. It asks the group to make recommendations and to identify and explore issues on which the group has persistent disagreement. We will discuss insights into how the public values the use of data linkage and under what conditions such use becomes problematic. For example, we are hoping to gain insight about how publics determine if a project is in the public interest, or conversely, how a project may pose unacceptable harm. Conclusion/Implications Changes in available data and increasing ability to link data makes it essential to include public views in systems of data access governance. Understanding the hopes and concerns of the public regarding the use of linked data for research will help develop data access regulations that reflect wide public interests

Impaired reward processing in the human prefrontal cortex distinguishes between persistent and remittent attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children often persist into adulthood and can lead to severe antisocial behavior. However, to-date it remains unclear whether neuro-functional abnormalities cause ADHD, which in turn can then provide a marker of persistent ADHD. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal changes in subjects during a reversal learning task in which choice of the correct stimulus led to a probabilistically determined ‘monetary’ reward or punishment. Participants were diagnosed with ADHD during their childhood (N = 32) and were paired with age, gender, and education matched healthy controls (N = 32). Reassessment of the ADHD group as adults resulted in a split between either persistent (persisters, N = 17) or remitted ADHDs (remitters, N = 15). All three groups showed significantly decreased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the left striatum during punished correct responses, however only remitters and controls presented significant psycho-physiological interaction between these fronto-striatal reward and outcome valence networks. Comparing persisters to remitters and controls showed significantly inverted responses to punishment (P < 0.05, family-wise error corrected) in left PFC region. Interestingly, the decreased activation shown after punishment was located in different areas of the PFC for remitters compared with controls, suggesting that remitters might have learned compensation strategies to overcome their ADHD symptoms. Thus, fMRI helps understanding the neuro-functional basis of ADHD related behavior differences and differentiates between persistent and remittent ADHD