The average value of a new housing loan rocketed from €62,000 in 1997 to almost €230,000 in 2006, according to new figures released today by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The impact of the housing boom was reflected in the report entitled Measuring Ireland's Progress, 2007, which showed that the number of housing loans taken out increased from 57,901 in 1997 to 111,253 in 2006, while mortgage interest rates declined over this period from 7.22 per cent to 4.2 per cent.
While Ireland has the second highest rate of third-level graduates in the European Union, it also has the highest pupil-teacher ratio at primary level, the CSO found.
In 2007, 41.3 per cent of 25-34 year olds had graduated from third level institutions, compared with and EU average of 29.1 per cent. Irish 15-year-olds had the second highest levels of literacy in the EU in 2006.
But the pupil-teacher ration at primary schools was 17.9 per cent compared with 11 of the reporting EU member states that had a pupil-teacher ration of less than 13 in the school year 2004/2005.
Ireland’s economic success is reflected in the employment figures, which show that employment rose from 59.7 per cent in 1998 to 69 per cent in 2007. The rate of women in employment increased by over 12 percentage points in that period.
However, the proportion of Irish people at risk of poverty was above the EU average at 18 per cent, with 6.9 per cent of people in consistent poverty in 2006.
Irish men saw the gap in life expectancy rates with women drop by 4.8 years. Women still enjoy a higher life expectancy at 81.5 years compared to 76.7 years for men in the period 2004-2006. However compared with the period 2001-2003, men’s life expectancy rose from 1.6 years compared to 1.2 years for women.
Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions were at 125.5 per cent of 1990 levels in 2006, 12.5 percentage points higher than the Kyoto 2008-2012 target of 113 per cent of 1990 levels, the report found.
Waste landfilled in Ireland fell from over 67 per cent in 2004 to 63.9 per cent in 2006, while over half of the glass and paper waste generated in 2006 was recycled.