The Government have launched a public conversation on the Well-being Framework for Ireland. This follows publication of the first report on Ireland’s Well-being Framework in July, which proposed a vision and conceptual framework for Ireland.

The Framework provides an overarching structure for considering quality of life and societal progress, in addition to macroeconomic factors. By bringing different aspects of people’s lives together, it can facilitate more joined up policy decisions.

The public conversation aims to create awareness, test the framework, and to get a sense of people’s priorities. This information raising and consultation phase will help shape a greater shared understanding on what matters for well-being and quality of life in Ireland. It will include a broad programme of engagement with both internal and external stakeholders and wider society. This will include a social media campaign, a wide-ranging stakeholder event and a series of workshops and discussions that will explore specific areas of interest such as the views of young people, how to promote sustainable well-being for future generations, maximising linkages between national and local approaches and closing data gaps.

Speaking at the launch, the Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, said, “the Well-being Framework represents an important shift towards systematically understanding and measuring progress in the collective areas that provide for a good life in Ireland. I would encourage people to engage with this important cross-Government initiative. It is only through feedback that we can improve the Framework in order to better reflect what is important for the people of Ireland. I also welcome the publication of the CSO’s Wellbeing Information Hub today, and thank them for their ongoing work in providing good quality data in the area of well-being and quality of life.”

As part of the launch, a Well-being Portal has been published which will allow users to explore the well-being initiative in more depth and to engage with ongoing and future work in the area. Citizens and stakeholders are encouraged to give their views on the Framework, via the survey.

The publication of the CSO’s Wellbeing Information Hub was also released, a fundamental part of the Well-being Framework, which measures life and progress in Ireland through a cohesive set of indicators. It provides information on trends over time across these indicators and benchmarks Ireland’s position against the EU as a whole. Inequalities are drawn out through examining differences between groups of people.

Source: Council Journal