Appointment to the Medical Council:

The Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD, has following nomination by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), appointed Professor Desmond O’Neill to the Medical Council with effect from 30 April 2025 until 31 May 2026.

Prof Desmond O’Neill is currently the senior academic in Medical Gerontology at the TCD campus at Tallaght University Hospital. Prof O’Neill was a medical undergraduate of TCD before spending a year in Marseille as a volunteer with a NGO working with older people, and with electives in Hamburg. He subsequently trained as a geriatrician in St James's Hospital and the University of Bristol. Following an appointment as consultant geriatrician in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham he returned to Dublin and currently works at the TCD campus at Tallaght University Hospital. His focus of research is rooted in gerontology and the neurosciences, with a strong emphasis on liaison with the humanities.

He has pioneered a number of initiatives, including first Medical Director of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland; founder-Chair of Council on Stroke of Irish Heart Foundation; co-PI on first Irish longitudinal study on ageing (HESSOP-2); co-PI on Irish National Audits of Stroke and Dementia Care; founder-editor of first Irish gerontology journal 'Irish Ageing Studies Review'; chair of Irish government Working Group on Elder Abuse, producing blueprint 'Protecting Our Future'; co-founder National Centre for Arts and Health; member of team that developed the European Masters in Gerontology; co-PI on first Irish Cochrane Review on ageing; and founder member and subsequent president of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society.

He has subsequently led on the Irish Traffic Medicine Programme, which has developed innovative Certificates in Traffic Medicine and Road Safety with the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland.

He has been extensively involved in the Age-Friendly University initiative, successfully proposing to adoption in TCD and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and on the steering committee of the founding Age-Friendly University, Dublin City University. He has been honoured as the first Irish gerontologist to be awarded Fellowship of the Gerontological Society of America, and first Irish geriatrician to be awarded Fellowship of the American Geriatrics Society. From a humanities perspective, he co-chairs Medical and Health Humanities in TCD's Long Room Hub, and is a former Chair of the Humanities, Arts and Cultural Gerontology Advisory Panel of the Gerontological Society of America.