2018 in Ireland
overview of Ireland-related events during the year of 2018

Events during the year 2018 in Ireland.
Incumbents
President: Michael D. Higgins
Taoiseach: Leo Varadkar (FG)
Tánaiste: Simon Coveney (FG)
Minister for Finance: Paschal Donohoe (FG)
Chief Justice: Frank Clarke
Dáil: 32nd
Seanad: 25th
Events
January
1 January
Teachtaí Dála awarded themselves a pay increase of €3,600, with a further increase to follow in October, bringing the total increase in 2018 to €4,500, yielding an annual salary of €94,500.
The Road Safety Authority published provisional statistics for 2017, which showed a 15% drop in road deaths since year. A total of 158 people died on Ireland's roads compared to 186 lives lost in 2016. It was the lowest figure since they were first officially recorded in 1959.
A 2016 Regulation changed the boundaries and classifications of NUTS regions across Europe (administrative divisions of countries for statistical purposes), with the new classification in Ireland applying from 1 January 2018
2 January
A record 656 patients were on trolleys or on wards waiting for admission to a bed, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
Met Éireann issued two Status Orange warnings as Storm Eleanor swept across the country bringing gusts of up to 130 km/h and flooding in some areas. Up to 55,000 Electricity Supply Board customers in the west and north west of the country were left without power.
3 January – The level of hospital overcrowding increased to a national record of 677 patients, according to the latest figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
4 January – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar apologised to patients who have experienced long delays and waits on trolleys in emergency departments as the Health Service Executive revealed that there were 12 children on trolleys in the three children's hospitals in Dublin.
The public source identifies “2018 in Ireland” as overview of Ireland-related events during the year of 2018. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ireland, overview and Ireland-related.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48807352. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2018, 2017, 2016 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “2018 in Ireland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.