We’re the sixth happiest - and that’s no joke

HAPPINESS polls could be the latest tool employed by governments to decide on the best time to deliver good and bad news to the public.

Instead of opinion polls concentrating on the performance of politicians and political parties, people are more likely to be asked about the satisfaction ratings they apply to their own lives.

The results could dictate when elections are scheduled, when tax hikes are announced and where and when State grants and exchequer funds are targeted, according to researcher Andrew Oswald in his paper, The Macroeconomics of Happiness.

But Oswald's theory doesn't necessarily mean governments will be throwing cash at gloomy regions to lift the public mood because other research suggests money really can't buy happiness.

At least not in Ireland where 30 years of changing economic fortunes have failed to have any noticeable effect on a public mood best defined as defiantly buoyant.

The World Happiness Survey this year places Ireland sixth in a league of 68 countries, but whereas other nations have seen their placing rise and fall over the half century the survey has been conducted, the Irish manage to make an appearance in or around the top of the table every year.

By contrast, the United States was at its happiest in 1957 when society was still evolving. Almost 50 years on when their collective status, wealth and power are beyond dispute, their happiness ratings have plummeted to the last 20 in the group.

The lesson, for Ireland as much as the US, would seem to be that when countries are all right economically, governments get comparatively little return from trying to make them even richer and should concentrate on quality of life issues instead.

Not all academics are happy with the happiness measurements applied by their colleagues, however. Others, whose views are reported in the Journal of Happiness Studies, point out happiness is not an easily quantifiable variable and economists may be over-simplifying things by suggesting it can be measured or used to guide fiscal and economic strategies.

The debate threatens to turn the whole happiness issue into a major headache but at least poll firms are smiling all the way to the bank.