Well-being

Ireland’s Item was unpublished or removed was launched in July 2021. It is a cross-government initiative to help improve our understanding of quality of life and to measure how we are progressing overall as a country. This can help us better align policy decisions with people’s experiences.

A Well-being Framework has the advantage of bringing economic, societal and environmental impacts together under one Framework. It also places a particular focus on equality and sustaining well-being into the future. It includes 11 dimensions of well-being, which capture the areas that matter most to the people of Ireland for a good quality of life, areas such as housing, skills, work, health and community. The Well-being Information Hub, which is hosted by the CSO, covers 35 indicators across these 11 dimensions.

Work is ongoing to embed this approach into policy-making including annual analysis of the indicators, integration into the Budget cycle, promoting international knowledge sharing and applications at sectoral level.

A key benefit of a well-being perspective is the focus it brings to considering the impact of public policy on people’s lives. This focus encompasses not only efforts to describe people’s lives and the challenges they face, but also how public policy can enhance their ability to progress their lives and/or overcome those challenges. The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery & Reform has published a working paper examining the relationship between well-being and public policy. As part of this process, the Department has published a working paper, Lives of Older People in Ireland, that uses a broad range of conceptualisations of ageing and the Well-being Framework to develop an understanding of what is meant by well-being in older age in Ireland.

The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery & Reform has also published a working paper outlining how a well-being perspective can be developed within the context of the budgetary process, and, in particular, support the development of a cross-governmental description of resource allocation decisions as a complement to the existing approach to presenting such information. As part of this process, the Department has published working papers that utilise the Well-being Framework to provide a cross-governmental description of:

1. Selected measures announced in the annual Budget:

Budget 2024 – Enhancing the Well-being of People Living in Ireland

Budget 2025 – Enhancing the Wellbeing of People Living in Ireland

2. Total Voted Government Expenditure set out in the Revised Estimates Volume:

Revised Estimates Volume 2024 – Enhancing the Well-being of People Living in Ireland