The CSO, through Ireland's Institute for SDGs (IIS), supports reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Free Contraception Scheme was expanded to include all women aged 17-35 years in 2024.
Malignant neoplasms and circulatory diseases were the main causes of death in 2023, accounting for 58% of all deaths.
There were 188 road deaths in 2023, up from 155 the previous year.
Medical cards were held by 30.4% of the population in 2022, while 11.3% held GP only visit cards.
Health insurance coverage continues to grow steadily, from a low of 41.7% of the population in 2014 to 47.0% in 2022.
Immunisation rates in 2022 for many illnesses were 90% and above, though Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (HIB) and Meningococcal have fallen below this level.
This publication ‘Ireland's UN SDGs – Goal 3 Good Health and Well-Being 2024’ is an update of the previous publication in the series from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). These publications monitor and report on how Ireland is progressing towards meeting its targets under the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The CSO and government departments and organisations collaborate to bring together data required in these reports for Ireland’s SDGs. This collaboration is formalised under the SDG Data Governance Board, which meets on a quarterly basis. The publication for Goal 3 was developed in collaboration with the Department of Health.
This third publication includes data for Ireland for each of the SDG indicators selected by the UN to measure 'Goal 3 Good Health and Well-Being'. Data are available at various levels of detail which include geography, gender, age group and other categories, where relevant, in accordance with the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.
This report on Goal 3 has 28 indicators which are organised into six user friendly chapters:
The titles of these chapters are based around common themes in the 13 targets which are measured in Goal 3.
The 17 UN SDGs are a set of global development targets adopted by the UN member countries in September 2015 to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The UN SDGs are driving the global development agenda towards 2030 (Agenda 2030). They address global challenges including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The 17 goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, the aim is to achieve them all by 2030. They recognise that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and help economic growth, while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
The CSO, Ordnance Survey Ireland* (OSi) and Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri-Ireland) established a project team in April 2017 to engage with a combined UN Statistics Division (UNSD)/Esri research exercise with a goal to develop and deploy a new approach for monitoring the UN SDG Indicators using geographic information systems. The result of this exercise is a new website (Ireland's SDGs Data Hub), hosted on OSi's Geohive platform, which is Ireland’s Central Portal for all SDGs and contains indicators data on the 17 UN SDGs for Ireland. All the indicators in this publication will be loaded onto the Geohive. This work has been formalised through the creation of Ireland’s Institute for SDGs (IIS) - an initiative between the CSO, OSi and Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC). The membership of the IIS is expected to expand with ongoing monitoring and reporting of Ireland's progress towards meeting UN SDGs.
*Tailte Eireann is an independent Government agency formed by the merger of the Property Registration Authority (PRA), the Valuation Office and Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI), on 1st March 2023.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (11 October 2024) published 'Ireland's UN SDGs - Goal 3 Good Health and Well-Being 2024'.
Commenting on the publication, Mary Smyth, Statistician, said:
"This latest report on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) has data on 28 indicators for Ireland, divided over 6 chapters: Childbirth, Communicable Diseases, Premature Mortality, Health Care, Environment, and Health Infrastructure. Data are presented in categories relevant to the indicators and geographical location, where possible. The SDGs and their associated indicators are, by design, wide-ranging in their coverage. As a result, the Irish data are provided by a number of sources including government departments, official organisations and international organisations such as the UN. This publication for Goal 3 was developed in collaboration with the Department of Health.”
Commenting on the results of the publication, Ms Smyth said:
Premature Mortality
"Malignant Neoplasms were the main cause of death in 2023, accounting for 30% of all deaths. It was the cause of the largest number of deaths in 2023 for males and females at 5,658 and 4,915 deaths respectively.
The CSO Vital Statistics section reported the standardised death rate from neoplasms per 1,000 population remained the same at 2.0 between 2022 and 2023. Over this time period, the death rate from diseases of the circulatory system also remained the same at 1.9 per 1,000 population.
There were 188 road deaths in Ireland in 2023, up 33 on last year. There were 16 road deaths recorded for Tipperary in 2023, the highest for all counties.
There were 302 deaths from suicide in 2023 (provisional data). Three in four deaths (232) from suicide were male in 2023.
Health Care
According to the Health Service Executive (HSE) 1,598,479 patients had a medical card and 660,487 had a GP visit card in 2024. The drug payment scheme (DPS) helped 1,654,375 persons in 2022, an increase of 10% since 2021.
On 18 April 2024 the Department of Health launched the Women’s Health Action Plan 2024-2025. It includes the expansion of the Free Contraception Scheme to women aged 17-35 years.
In August 2024, the CSO published the Household Budget Survey 2022-2023 showing that medical related expenditure (e.g. expenditure on doctors, dentists, medicines, excluding health insurance) accounted for 2.7% of household weekly expenditure in 2022-2023.
Health Infrastructure
Immunisation uptake rates in 2022 for many illnesses remained stable at 90% and above, although Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (HIB) and Meningococcal have fallen below this level.
Health insurance has grown steadily to 47.0% population coverage in 2022, having declined to a low of 41.7% in 2014. Over half the population in the age groups between 60 and 84 years, had health insurance in 2022. In the 18-29 years age group 38.9% had health insurance, the lowest proportion of any age group."