A Limited Perspective: Gaps in the Government’s 2025 Wellbeing Framework
The Government’s report Understanding Life in Ireland: The Well-being Framework 2025 opens by stating that the “framework provides a high-level holistic overview of how our country is doing, economically, environmentally, and socially,” while also acknowledging that “these indicators are partial reflections of the totality of life experiences and they cannot include all data on life in Ireland.” While it is true that no framework can capture everything, the wellbeing framework was designed to provide a robust, comprehensive picture of societal progress - one that reflects lived experiences, highlights inequalities, and ensures that no one is left behind. When progress is assessed primarily through aggregated national trends, inequalities are easily masked.
Significant progress had been made up to the 2023 report, which, although more complex, was a step in the right direction as it integrated equality and sustainability aspects into the core measurements. Instead of building on this strong foundation, the 2025 wellbeing framework, similar to last year, steps back from it. By removing these aspects, the framework weakens its ability to assess who is being impacted most and whether progress is truly shared.
As with the 2024 publication, Government’s 2025 wellbeing report presents a largely positive picture of national progress. This optimistic narrative is shaped both by the selection of indicators used and by the removal of equality and sustainability from the core metrics. We previously indicated that such an approach risk oversimplifying the realities facing many in society and could make wellbeing appear better than it really is, and that concern has proven true again.1 The Government reports strong national and international performance, noting positive trends in eight of the 11 dimensions, and progress on sustainability in several areas. However, many of these findings are shaped by the choice of indicators. For instance, the Housing and Built Environment dimension appears to show strong improvement mainly because it tracks new dwelling completions and the share of homes receiving A or B energy ratings. While the dimension does include the housing cost overburden rate (which shows little progress) and the average distance to everyday services (for which limited data is available), the overall picture still appears positive. This does not match people’s lived experiences, as housing remains one of Ireland’s biggest challenges. Even though the narrative mentions the cohort that is affected by it the most, leaving it out of the core metrics creates a façade of progress.
This approach brings further challenges. Although the Government’s report highlights population groups with the lowest outcomes—such as unemployed people, single-parent households, older persons, renters, lower-income households, and individuals with long-term illnesses—the exclusion of equality and sustainability from the performance metrics means these disparities risk being sidelined in policymaking. Without explicit measurement, inequalities become less visible, less urgent, and ultimately less central to decision-making. This limits the framework’s ability to assess structural issues such as housing affordability, income inequality, environmental degradation, and working conditions—areas where equitable and sustainable solutions are essential.
As with any high-level dashboard, there is a risk of assuming that aggregate improvements mean that life is better for everyone when in reality some groups remain significantly disadvantaged. A wellbeing framework should make these differences visible.
In the next article in this series, we will look at Social Justice Ireland’s alternative wellbeing framework.
'Wellbeing: Measuring What Matters 2025' is available to download here.
This project has been part-funded by Coalition 2030, an alliance of 70+ civil society organisations from the international aid, domestic anti-poverty and equality, environment and trade union sectoral pillars working to ensure that Ireland keeps its promise to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, both at home and abroad.
- Read our 2024 detailed analysis HERE
