Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 June 2023
77. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he will comment on how the 2023 well-being framework will feature in the National Economic Dialogue, the summer economic Statement and budget day documentation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30968/23]
View answerFrom 2022, the Government has committed to featuring the Well-being Framework within the budgetary process. This follows from a commitment in the Programme for Government – Our Shared Future to use a well-being perspective to inform budgetary priorities as a complement to existing economic measurement tools. This commitment regarding the budgetary process is part of a wider undertaking to develop a set of indices to create a holistic view of how Irish society is faring and utilise this in a systematic way across government policy making.
As the budgetary process is a whole-of-year process, the well-being initiative is being developed in a way that seeks to inform this process as a whole. Within this broader context, in December 2022, my Department published a working paper that sets out an approach to integrating the Well-being Framework into Ireland’s budgetary cycle. The overall approach seeks to introduce a well-being perspective at key points in the budgetary process. In this context, my Department is progressing an initiative that seeks to develop a cross-governmental description of budgetary expenditure decisions in terms of well-being dimensions. It is intended that this will complement the existing Vote Group approach to presenting such decisions and “tag” expenditure so as to describe the overall level of allocated resources in terms of well-being dimensions.
The use of a well-being perspective has been evident at the National Economic Dialogues over the past few years. At this year’s Dialogue I chaired a breakout session that was informed by a well-being perspective. In particular, this breakout session sought to provide participants with an opportunity to consider longer-term economic, social and environmental factors as part of their discussions of budgetary prioritisation.
Since autumn 2021, the CSO has hosted their ‘Well-being Information Hub’ which provides an interactive and up-to-date view of the Well-being Framework’s 35 indicators that measure life and progress in Ireland. This month, the Government published the second annual analysis of the Well-being Framework. This report was prepared by the Department of the Taoiseach and is intended to support a broad discussion of the impacts of policy decisions.
The Summer Economic Statement (SES) provides the key anchor for budgetary policy each year and outlines the fiscal parameters within which discussions will take place ahead of Budget 2024. Each year the SES sets out our plans for sustainable expenditure growth to provide for the delivery of investment in public services and infrastructure to support a strong, fair and equal society into the future. Such plans are key to addressing issues of well-being for our people. It is intended that this year’s Summer Economic Statement will again include information on the Well-being Framework and provide a summary of the analysis of the Dashboard’s indicators.
More broadly, the Spending Review process offers an opportunity to develop, present and publish policy analysis that applies a well-being perspective to existing public policies and programmes.
