Explore the analysis of the dashboard in Understanding Life in Ireland: the Well-being Dashboard
Ireland’s Well-being Framework 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.
The importance of taking a new and broader approach to understanding people’s lives has never been clearer, particularly reflecting on our experience of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
In July 2021 the government's First Report on a Well-being Framework for Ireland was published. It captured the first phase of this work and set out the guiding vision and ambitions alongside an initial Well-being Framework and supporting Dashboard of Indicators informed by significant consultation with stakeholders carried out by the National Economic and Social Council.
The second phase of the work, captured in a Second Report - A Well-being Framework for Ireland, published in June 2022, included a Public Conversation and specific research which sought feedback on and tested the initial framework. This led to a refinement of the Framework, in particular placing a stronger focus on sustainability. The Report also sets out a pathway for embedding a well-being approach into the policy-making system over time, including into the Budget process.
Initial plans to take this approach forward include:
- annual published analysis of the well-being dashboard and a focus on well-being in the National Economic Dialogue;
- continued embedding into expenditure and evaluation policy;
- promotion of relevant research and policy developments; and
- clear supporting structures
In 2022, the Well-being Framework and the analysis of the accompanying dashboard featured in the Budgetary process. It was a theme at the National Economic Dialogue in June, and an updated version of the analysis also featured in the Summer Economic Statement and in Budget Day documentation through a new publication entitled ‘Budget 2023: Beyond GDP – Quality of Life Assessment’. It is intended that this will be an annual contribution to the Budget process, which will support a broader discussion of the impacts of Budgetary decisions. For more information on this process click here.
