37% of Irish have trouble paying their bills, EU survey shows
The high level (37%) of Irish with problems puts the country in the top half of a table, joining people from the newer EU member states along with Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy.
Those with the least difficulties making ends meet were the Danes and Swedes, with 13% having problems.
Despite blaming the euro for rising prices, the Irish believe the best prospect for the future of the EU is to have the same currency in every member state, according to an EU-wide poll.
The poll also shows 13% of Irish — compared to an EU average of 11% — believed replacing national income taxes with a European system would make them feel more European.
This is despite the Government’s continuing battle to keep income tax a national issue and ensure the EU has no say in it.
When it came to ensuring the EU’s future, the Irish favoured having a common language — the numbers of Irish with a foreign language has traditionally been low.
But the survey, carried out for the European Commission, showed that few (13%) Irish even attempted to read anything in a foreign language in the past year, compared to 91% of the Luxembourgers.
Almost half of those questioned said they had travelled in Europe in the past year and even more had socialised with people from other member states.
But there was a note of caution about the numbers of workers from the new members in the country, with two-thirds saying they feared further EU enlargement would cause problems in the jobs market.
The Irish still believe the union is going in the right direction and remain among the EU’s biggest supporters, just behind Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Just one-third of British think European Union membership is a good thing for the country.
Austrians and Latvians have the lowest opinion of the EU, according to the 25-nation ‘eurobarometer’ published by the European Commission.
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