State of the Nation's Children

The annual State of the Nation's Children Report is based on the National Set of Child Well-Being Indicators published in 2005. The report was first published in 2006. It had three aims: to describe the lives of children in Ireland, to track how their lives change over time, and to benchmark progress in Ireland relative to other countries.

These aims are achieved by presenting key information in areas such as health and education, as well as social, emotional, behavioural and self-reported happiness outcomes. The report also presents data on supports and services available to children and their families, along with children’s relationships with their parents and peers. The report is produced by the Data and Analytics Unit of DCEDIY, with data provided by a range of government departments, agencies and research organisations.

The State of the Nation’s Children publication is an outcome of the publication of the National Set of Child Well-Being Indicators in 2005. See here for additional information on the development of the indicator set including papers on children’s understanding of well-being and an inventory of key indicators when measuring children’s well-being.

State of the Nation’s Children Reports and Key Findings published to date can be found below. In line with the government’s Open Data Initiative, much of the data is now available in an open, machine-readable format. The majority of the data is housed in the Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) PxStat system. In recent publications, click on the heading of each table and figure to access the data source.