Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 April 2019
183. Deputy Denise Mitchell asked the Minister for Health the health promotion programmes operational under Healthy Ireland; the funding earmarked for each of the programmes for each of the past five years; if evaluations have been carried out of the programmes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18171/19]
View answerHealthy Ireland is the National Framework for Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013-2025. Healthy Ireland is based on evidence and experience from around the world which clearly shows that to create positive changes in health and well-being takes the involvement of the whole of Government and all of society working in unison. There are a number of Health Promotion policies and programmes that fall under the scope of the Healthy Ireland Framework that are being implemented in the Health Services and across several Government Departments, Agencies and settings. A central aim of Healthy Ireland is to ‘create an environment where every individual and sector of society can play their part in achieving a healthy Ireland”. It is therefore extremely difficult to classify and specifically quantify the funding that is being earmarked for each programme and to give an indication if an evaluation has taken place for each over the previous five years.
However, I can give the Deputy information relating to Funds expended by the Department of Health on health promotion programmes. In July 2016, the Government approved the creation of a Healthy Ireland Fund and subsequently provided an initial allocation of €5 million in Budget 2017 to kick-start the establishment of the Fund. The Fund has distributed €10mil from my Department in 2017 and 2018 to all Local Community Development Committees, Children and Young Persons Services Committees and several national statutory organisations for the promotion of health and well-being activity. A further €5mil will be distributed in 2019. The aim of the Healthy Ireland Fund is to stimulate and support innovative, cross-sectoral, evidence-based projects, programmes and initiatives that support the implementation of the key national policies in areas such as Obesity, Smoking, Alcohol, Physical Activity, Healthy Eating and Sexual Health at a local level. In 2017, the results of the first year of the Healthy Ireland Fund have been very encouraging, especially in relation to the targeting of socially disadvantaged communities. Of the 382 actions delivered under strand 1, 2,456 organisations were reported to be involved in the implementation of local priority actions and an estimated 770,000 people were reported to have benefitted. These actions generally targeted health inequality, especially people living in areas of social disadvantage (71% of actions), people with disabilities (45%), people from new communities including refugees and asylum seekers (39%) and members of the Traveller community (36%). Similarly, the total number of people reported as benefiting from national actions under Strand 2 was 130,735. The number of organisations benefiting was reported as 1,785, and almost two thirds of actions (63%) reported a focus on people with disabilities and/or chronic illnesses (including mental health issues) and over half of actions (54%) were focused on people living in areas of social disadvantage.
The HSE provides funding and resources for health promotion programmes under Healthy Ireland and I therefore will refer this PQ to them for further response.
