Written answers
Tuesday, 2 July 2019
Department of An Taoiseach
Central Statistics Office Data
Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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132. To ask the Taoiseach his plans to extend the key economic and social metrics employed by the CSO to indicate all aspects of the well-being of persons, along the lines being pursued in New Zealand and other jurisdictions. [27469/19]
Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Central Statistics Office (CSO) compiles a wide range of statistics and indicators related to well-being, and aims to deliver these results in thematic reports and formats which promote good use of relevant statistics. The CSO appreciates that Government and policy-makers need to know how Ireland is performing in a general sense; need data to assess economic, social and environmental conditions; and require evidence to evaluate policy outcomes.
Well-being, in its broadest sense, can be viewed as a measure of how people feel about their lives as a whole and as a measure of all aspects of life. As a result, it is a complex multi-dimensional issue influenced by factors such as the state of the environment, the educational levels of the population, economic performance, public safety, and the health of the population, amongst other factors.
The most prominent report on this topic published by the CSO is The Wellbeing of the Nation 2017. This report was published in January 2018 and provides a series of indicators across eight domains. The domains were selected based on their importance to well-being and they encompass many aspects of people’s everyday life. They have also been selected to be in line with international best practice where possible, whilst also remaining relevant to Irish information needs. The table below shows the domains and corresponding indicators.
Domains and corresponding indicators featured in The Wellbeing of the Nation 2017
| Domain | Indicators |
|---|---|
| Economy | Average debt per household Modified Gross National Income (GNI*) Average total annual earnings Consumer price index |
| Work | Unemployment rate Long-term unemployment rate Employment rate of those with a disability Percentage working greater than 48 hours per week Enforced job instability Discrimination in the workplace |
| Education | Educational attainment Early school leavers indicator Digital skills of those aged 16-74 Programme for international student assessment (PISA) mathematics score |
| Housing and natural Environment | Homelessness Air quality River water quality Recovered packaging recycling rates |
| Governance and Equality | Female representation in Dáil Éireann Consistent poverty rate Equality of income distribution Percentage that experienced discrimination |
| Health | Self-perceived health Healthy life years at birth Overweight/obesity Binge drinking at least once a week Deaths by suicide |
| Public Safety | Self-reported victimisation Worry about becoming a victim of personal crime or theft and damage Perception of seriousness of crime in Ireland Number of injuries or fatalities from road traffic accidents |
| Time Use | Volunteering Participation in sport Average weekly household expenditure on sports and leisure Commuting time |
Other related work undertaken by the CSO includes the presentation, in co-operation with Ordnance Survey Ireland, of geospatial information on the EU and UN Sustainable Development Goals (see ). Further work is under way this year on a CSO thematic report on the SDGs; and the CSO is also developing a set of energy poverty indicators.
To aid with communicating statistics and indicators on well-being, the CSO has also begun work on an interactive well-being dashboard, which will be similar to the Key Short-term Economic Indicators dashboard on the CSO website (). The aim of the dashboard will be to present up-to-date statistics on well-being in an easily accessible way.
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