A contented nation - Is Ireland happy or just docile?

WHEN US President Barack Obama assured us in his College Green speech on Monday that Ireland’s best times lie ahead he may not have had sight of the mammoth OECD report published yesterday which shows that we are already ranked among the top 10 countries in a “better life index”.

Had he seen the results he might have wondered how we might cope with circumstances better than those uncovered by OECD researchers who considered factors as wide ranging as disposable income, health and community spirit across 34 countries.

They measured well-being and progress and found that the great majority of Irish people — 73% — are satisfied with their life. This puts us well above the OECD average of 59%.

Taken in these extraordinary times these are remarkable figures. They suggest that we are taking our new and straitened circumstances in our stride. Though some are, many more are struggling to come to terms with new, less comfortable realities. Still more, those who have lost their jobs or businesses, maybe even their home, must wonder how so many Irish people can still be so happy. The challenges presented by unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, must make some of these purring findings hard to bear.

It also answers, in some small part at least, the goad from the Greeks who protest so violently at any measure designed to restore some degree of sanity to their public finances all the while declaring that they “are not the Irish”. It might be no harm if we consider the Greeks’ challenge and work out whether our happiness is based on docility or real contentment. One is the road to subjugation, the other a foundation stone for recovery. Unless that contentment, and let us hope that is what it is, can be used to build the steely confidence needed to insist on the reforms and real accountability needed right across public and civic life we will have to accept the Greeks’ insults however shamefacedly.

The OECD identified a strong sense of community as a buttress of the national psyche.

Though the limits of this have been revealed by the inequities of the recession, and that so many of those with questions to answer are still working on their golf handicap, it remains the heartbeat of this society. Though Government insists that everything that can be done is being done to finalise banking investigations, the delay is striking at the integrity of our justice system and undermining the public support it depends on to function.

Nevertheless, the OECD tell us we are a happy people and it is not hard to see why.

Compared to the vast, struggling majority of humanity most Irish people live good, unthreatened lives, far away from conflict and hunger. We may be struggling but not for the necessities of life.

We can be smug about this or realise that these circumstances are not guaranteed but the result of fate and a commitment to public and community service that we must always cherish and strengthen. Most of all we cannot allow the happiness this report uncovers undermine the ambition most Irish people have to rebuild a new Ireland from the debris of our recent humiliating and insane decade of hubris.