THERE IS a “massive gap” between the extent of elder abuse and levels of reporting, an expert on the issue has said.

Sarah Marsh, the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) dedicated officer on elder abuse in the Leinster region, said that while the HSE has handled about 5,000 reports of elder abuse in the past four years, there were likely to be many multiples of this happening.

Ms Marsh was addressing the first of a series of workshops aimed at raising awareness of the issue, organised by Age Action Ireland.