The Healthy Ireland Framework draws on existing policies but proposes new arrangements to ensure effective co-operation and collaboration and to implement evidence-based policies at government, sectoral, community and local levels. It is about each individual sector helping to improve health and wellbeing, multiplying all efforts and delivering better results.

P.10
Smoking
• Around one million people in Ireland smoke tobacco products.
• 12% of children aged between 11-17 years are current smokers.
• Smoking rates are highest (56%) amongst women aged 18-29 years from poor communities, compared to 28% of young women from higher social classes.
• The annual death toll from smoking-related diseases in Ireland is at least 5,200, with many thousands more, and their families, affected through chronic illness and disability
• One in every two smokers will die of a tobacco-related disease; these diseases include a wide range of cancers, as well as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

Alcohol and Drugs
• The alcohol consumption rate for Ireland is one of highest in Europe at 11.9 litres per capita in 2010.
• Alcohol is responsible for approximately 90 deaths every month, which include many alcohol-related cancers and heart diseases. High alcohol consumption may also contribute to obesity, through the additional calories consumed by regular drinkers.
• Alcohol is a contributory factor in half of all suicides.
• Use of illegal drugs in the last year is reported at 7% of adults between aged 15-64 years.
• Drug use was the direct and indirect cause of 534 deaths in 2008, including deaths attributed to heroin, methadone, benzodiazepines, and medical and trauma deaths.
• Between 1998 and 2007, benzodiazepines were implicated in nearly one-third (31%) of all deaths by poisoning, with the annual number increasing from 65 in 1998 to 88 in 2007. In 2010, over 900,000 GMS prescription items relate