State had second highest public healthcare spend per person in EU in 2022

The Republic had the second highest public healthcare spending per capita in the EU last year, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Expenditure per inhabitant on “the sickness and healthcare function”, which includes the State’s €22 billion spending on public health (the bulk of the Health Service Executive’s annual budget) plus other items such as sick pay for public sector workers, was €4,582 in 2022, the agency said.

This was the second highest in the EU behind Luxembourg (€7,211) but ahead of Germany in third (€4,506), Netherlands in fourth (€4,190), France in eighth (€3,884) and the EU 27 average (€2,887).

Ten member states reported expenditure of less than half the EU average, with Romania the lowest at less than €500 per inhabitant (in 2021, the latest year available).

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The CSO’s Social Protection Expenditure in Ireland 2022 report indicated the State spent €58.4 billion on social protection last year, a small reduction on the 2021 spend of €59.1 billion.

This represented 12 per cent of national income as measured by GDP (gross domestic product) and 21 per cent as measured by the CSO’s bespoke measure of gross national income (GNI*).

The largest areas of expenditure were in sickness/healthcare (€25.3 billion) and old age (€15.9 billion); together they accounted for 73 per cent of the total spend, the CSO said.

Social expenditure accounts for the biggest annual State spend. It includes the budgets for sickness/healthcare benefits (including medical care, paid sick leave, and provision of pharmaceutical products); disability benefits; old age benefits; family/children benefits and unemployment benefits.

The CSO figures showed expenditure on unemployment dropped significantly in 2022 by €3.6 billion to €2.5 billion, reflecting a return to pre-pandemic levels and the cessation of the Government’s Pandemic Unemployment Payment scheme in 2022.

The Republic’s social protection spending amounted to €11,143 per person in 2022. Of the member states that had reported 2022 data at the time of publication, Bulgaria had the lowest per inhabitant expenditure at €2,581 while the highest was in Luxembourg at €25,667.

Average expenditure on social protection across the bloc was €9,636 per person in 2022, down 2 per cent on 2021.

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