Department of Health's, draft Equality Action Plan and draft Disability Action Plan 2025-2030

Overview

Section 75 (S.75) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 requires public authorities, in carrying out their functions as they relate to Northern Ireland, to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity and regard to the desirability of promoting good relations across a range of categories as outlined below.

Under S.75 there is a requirement to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity between:

• • persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation;

  • men and women generally;

  • persons with a disability and persons without; and

  • persons with dependants and persons without.

In addition, without prejudice to the obligations above, in carrying out the functions, there is a requirement to have regard to the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group.

The Department carried out an AOI in preparation for the development of the Equality Action Plan during 2024 and the summary report is available separately in Annex A. In conducting the AOI internal and external stakeholders were invited to submit potential health inequalities with any qualitative and quantitative evidence.

The findings from the AOI were used to inform the draft Equality Action Plan (EAP) and draft Disability Action Plan (DAP) to update the previous 5-year action plans from 2019-2024 for implementation in 2025.

Why your views matter

The current Department of Health’s (DoH) Equality Scheme was published in 2022. One of the key commitments is to carry out an Audit of Inequalities and develop a Section 75 Equality Action Plan. This consultation seeks your views on the Audit of Inequalities and draft 5-year Equality Action Plan and draft Disability Action Plan (Annex B and C). Please see Consultation Response form for applicable consultation questions (Annex D).