Dublin beats Boston, Rome, New York and Madrid as one of the world's most desirable cities according to a worldwide quality-of-living survey by consultants William M Mercer.

Dublin is identified as one of the top cities in the world in which to live and is almost on a par with London.

The survey covered 218 cities and evaluated 39 key quality-of-living standards for each city including political, economic and environmental factors, personal safety and health, education, transport and other public services.

The analysis was conducted to assist multinational corporations in assessing comparative international quality-of-living standards for their expatriate workers.

Cities were ranked with New York as the base city with a score of 100. Dublin shares its score of 101 with cities such as Seattle and Los Angeles. Four cities share the top position with a score of 106 - Vancouver, Zurich, Vienna and Bern.