Health in Ireland: Key Trends 2025

The annual publication illustrates the significant improvements in health outcomes in the past decade and highlights some of the challenges in the access of timely and efficient healthcare.

Highlights from the publication, which covers demographics, population health, hospital and primary care, health sector employment, expenditure, and child and adolescent health, include:

• the number of people in Ireland who reported their health as being good or very good (79.9%) in 2024 was the highest in the EU, well above the EU average of 68.4%. Ireland also had the highest rate of self-perceived good health in 2022-2023
• in 2023, life expectancy in Ireland was the eighth highest in the EU, at 82.9 years
• the population has grown by 15.2% since 2016, with the over 65s group increasing by 36.7% between 2016 and 2025
• the total number of consultant and non-consultant hospital doctors employed in the public health service in Ireland increased to 14,468 (62.2% increase) between 2016 and 2025
• the number of nurses and midwives increased to almost 49,000 (36.1% increase) between 2016 and 2025
• between 2015 and 2024, the mortality rate from cancer declined by 13.7%, the mortality rate from circulatory system diseases declined by 28.2%, the mortality rate for ischaemic heart disease declined by 34.6% and the mortality rate from respiratory system diseases fell declined 23.4%
• the proportion of total health expenditure paid for either out-of-pocket or through private health insurance has been reducing in recent years; the government funded 77.7% of total health expenditure in Ireland in 2024
• there has been a sustained and substantial decline in the proportion of current tobacco smokers among young people aged 10–17 years, representing a 79.2% reduction between 1998 and 2022
• the proportion of women having recorded any breastfeeding at the time of discharge from maternity facility increased by 12.7% between 2015 and 2024

This is the seventeenth edition of this easy-to-use reference guide to significant trends in health and health care over the past decade, including population and health status, as well as trends in service provision.