How Eurostat should be read

YOUR report headlined ‘Ireland fails to protect its weakest citizens’ (Irish Examiner, October 21) appears to be the result of a failure by your Europe correspondent to analyse the data from Eurostat properly and in context.

As a consequence, your editorial castigation of the Government for its “pathetic performance” is based on a serious misunderstanding of the real position.

1. The proper basis for making such cross-country comparisons is by reference to Gross National Product (GNP) - not Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which measures the value of goods and services produced in a country.