This is the third edition of Sustainable Development Indicators Ireland, which is published on a biennial basis. The report Our Sustainable Future, A Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland (published by the then Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government) requested the CSO to develop a sustainable development indicator set in consultation with other government departments and agencies. The present indicator set complements two existing CSO indicator reports namely Measuring Ireland's Progress and Environmental Indicators Ireland.
Sustainable development has the objective of achieving continuous improvement in quality of life and well-being, by linking economic development, protection of the environment, and social justice.
The indicators in this publication are presented under four domains: Global; Economy; Social; and Environment. The Global Indicators domain contains seven indicators and gives a worldwide overview; the other three domains only contain data for Ireland and the EU. The Global indicators show that the EU is in an advantaged position in economic, health and education terms relative to most other regions.
The Economy, Social and Environment domains contain indicators designed to show trends in Ireland since 2000 and to benchmark Ireland against other countries in the European Union. The impacts of the ‘Celtic tiger’ and the subsequent recession are clearly visible in the data.
The CSO wishes to thank: Birdwatch Ireland; Department of Education and Skills; Department of the Communications, Climate Action and Environment; Department of Finance; Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Department of Health; Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government; Department of Social Protection; Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport; DKM Economic Consultants; Environmental Protection Agency; Revenue Commissioners and Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland for providing us with data and technical advice on the most appropriate indicators for Ireland.
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