CSO report - The prosand cons of progress

The Central Statistics Office report, Measuring Ireland’s Progress 2006, is an interesting snapshot of the country’s comparative position among the states of the European Union.

With the approach of the General Election, it provides plenty of material for politicians to assess our standing.

For a country that could not provide a livelihood for many of its people for most of the past century and a half, there are many positive aspects to the report.

The population of Ireland increased by 15.7% to almost 4.24 million people from 1997 to 2006, which was the second highest rate of increase in the EU. This was partly explained by immigration but also by the second highest fertility rate in the EU, behind only France.

Employment rose in Ireland from 56.1% in 1997 to 68.1% in 2006. The most significant increase was in women’s employment, which increased by 14%, while the rate for men increased by about 10%.

In the area of productivity, the country has the second highest per capita Gross Domestic Product in the 27 states of the European Union — 38.9% above the average.

The employment rate among persons aged 55-64 was 51.7%, which was 9.4% higher than the EU average, but there was a distinct disparity between the level of men and women in employment in that age bracket. Only 37.4% of those women were employed, compared with 65.7% of the men.

Our unemployment rate was the third lowest in the EU at 4.3%, which was up from a low of 3.6% in 2001, but the latest figure compared very favourably with the EU average of 7.9%.

The long-term unemployment rate in Ireland was 1.4% in 2005, compared with an EU average of nearly three times higher.

On the negative side, Irish trade competitiveness deteriorated since 2000, mainly due to inflation and the strengthening of the euro by 17% against the American dollar. Over 6% of men and 7.5% of women were categorised as living in consistent poverty.

Moreover, 20% of people were considered at risk of poverty, even after pensions and social transfer payments were taken into account. This is a disgrace, because it is one of the highest rates in the EU. Pensions and social transfers had little impact in reducing the risk of poverty, compared with other EU states.

While non-capital public expenditure on health and education increased significantly, this was not reflected in the level of progress. Spending on education rose by 45.2% per student between 1996 and 2005, but the pupil teacher ration is still one of the highest in the EU at 18.3. Twelve EU states had pupil-teacher ratios of less than 15.

Early school leavers represented 12.3% of the 18-24 age group, and they were more than twice as likely to be unemployed as that age group as a whole. Non-capital spending on health rose by 80% between 1995 and 2004, but there is little to show for it.

For some people, the latest statistics will provide comfort, but others will question them in the spirit of the late Bobby Kennedy’s paraphrase of the words of George Bernard Shaw: “Some people see things as they are and ask why, I dream things that never were and ask why not?”