Health Research Board

The Health Research Board (HRB) today set out its plan to strengthen Ireland’s health research capability over the next five years through public and patient involvement (PPI), an expanded research workforce and deepening partnerships at all-island, EU and international level.

When the HRB was established in 1986, it was born out of clear necessity. At the time, Ireland lagged behind many peers in both economic performance and public policy – including in health and social support. Unemployment and emigration were high, economic growth was low; and compared to countries like the UK, Denmark or the Netherlands, our public services were under-resourced and fragmented. Bodies like the HRB laid the groundwork for future reforms.

The challenge of connecting research to policy has been a long-standing subject of debate and there are a multitude of approaches globally. The COVID pandemic further concentrated minds on the need for researchers to produce work relevant to policy-makers, but equally for policy-makers to make their needs known to researchers.

Across governments, the challenge of connecting research to policy is a familiar one. It is recognised that a response is needed to the dated assumption that researchers aren’t producing relevant work but that policy-makers aren’t that interested anyway. That time has passed. The challenge is, that despite willingness on both sides, the mechanisms for translating academic insight into public decision-making are uneven and often under-evaluated.

The European Commission has pledged to tighten security at Europe’s ports and logistic hubs to combat continued growth in drug trafficking. The Commission has described drug-linked organised crime as the “most serious security threat facing Europe today”, with criminal networks increasingly exploiting technological advances, financial loopholes, and societal interconnectedness to expand their operations.

In a recent webinar hosted by the Health Research Board (HRB), I had the opportunity to present research on the links between childhood adversity and substance use in young adulthood. We analysed data from the ’98 cohort Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) national longitudinal study of children and young people, which began in 2006.

As I reach the end of my time as Chief Executive of the HRB, which coincides with the development of a new five-year strategy, it is timely to revisit the road we have travelled since 2020. Over the past five years, we have significantly expanded our scale, ambition, and collaborations, investing over €250 million in health research projects and clinical trials infrastructure.

A first-of-its-kind Irish study of coroners’ files has found that people who died by suicide and had gambling documented in their coronial records often faced a complex mix of mental health, financial, and social challenges – highlighting gambling as a significant factor in suicide risk. This is the first research of its kind in Ireland to use coronial records to explore the link between gambling and suicide.

Recent findings from national health and drug monitoring systems managed by the Health Research Board (HRB) show cocaine use remains high in Ireland with significant increases in related harm since 2013. While the overall prevalence of drug use has remained steady since 2019/20, the burden on the health system involving cocaine users remains high. In 2023, 7.3% of the adult population, approximately 301,000 people, reported using an illicit drug in the past year.

A total of 8,163 cases were treated for problem alcohol use in 2023, according to the latest data from the Health Research Board (HRB) – an increase of 10% on 2022 figures and the highest annual total in over a decade. One in four cases also reported problem use of another drug along with alcohol in 2023. Cocaine remains the most common additional drug reported with 1,310 cases mixing alcohol and cocaine in 2023 compared to 607 in 2017.