MEASURING IRELAND'S PROGRESS 2008:IRELAND'S SOCIAL and economic highs and lows are laid bare in a new report by the Central Statistics Office charting the country's transition from boom to bust.
They show a country in rapid transition from one of the richest in the European Union to one struggling with above-average unemployment, high costs and rising debt.
In general, the optimistically-titled Measuring Ireland’s Progress 2008 is a snapshot of one of the richest countries in the EU, peering over the cliff-face of the worst recession in living memory.
Aimed at policymakers here and in the EU, the report draws together social and economic data to show the good, the bad and the exceedingly ugly legacies of the boom.
The economic highs and lows are captured most graphically in jobless figures. Unemployment, which fell to a historic low of 3.6 per cent in 2001, jumped to 5.2 per cent by 2008, still well-below the EU average of 7 per cent.
Latest figures published last month show unemployment rates in Ireland surged even higher to just over 12 per cent, well-above the EU average of 9 per cent.
Still, we aren’t faring the worst by any means. The same data shows that countries such as Spain (18 per cent), Latvia (17 per cent) and Lithuania (17 per cent) rank significantly higher than us, though we’re catching up fast.
Government debt has also been heading in the wrong direction. While it had fallen to 25 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) – the total value of goods and services – by 2007, within the space of year it ballooned to 43 per cent.
In addition, the public balance, which was in surplus in recent years, fell to minus 7 per cent of GDP last year, the worst in the entire EU.
The report doesn’t need to say it because the sobering statistics speak for themselves: the party is well and truly over.
There were some small crumbs of comfort. Many other countries, for instance, had higher rates of government debt, such as the UK (52 per cent), Germany (66 per cent) and Italy (105 per cent).
Another hangover of the boom difficult to shift is the cost of living, which has left the country saddled with some of the highest prices in Europe.
Despite rising unemployment and debt, Ireland remained the second most expensive place in the EU during 2008, at 25 per cent above the average.
Only Denmark was more expensive, with prices at 38 per cent above the average cost of living.
But it’s not all negative.
Last year, Ireland had the second-highest rate of third-level education across the EU. Some 42 per cent of the population aged 25 to 34 had completed third-level education, well above the EU average of 30 per cent.
We also had the second-highest levels of reading literacy when it was last measured on an EU-wide basis in 2006.
Some things never change, however. We still had one of the highest pupil-teacher ratios across the EU with one teacher for 20 students. Ten EU states had a pupil-teacher ratio of less than 13 students per teacher at primary level.
Already, some of the figures have a touch of nostalgia about them, as if they are relics from another, more prosperous era.
Data on property, for instance, shows the housebuilding boom was in full swing in 2006 when a total of almost 90,000 dwellings were built.
This nearly halved by 2008, when the figure dropped to just under 52,000. The average value of a new housing loan in Ireland rose from €74,700 in 1998 to €266,400 in 2007.
Mortgage interest rates declined over this period from 7.1 per cent to 3.49 per cent in 2005, fuelling the housing boom, before rising to 5.25 per cent in 2007.
Even with all the wealth that accumulated over the Celtic Tiger years, poverty remained a major issue.
The proportion of the population at risk of poverty – which equated to an adult living on an income of less than €229 a week – in 2007 was 18 per cent, the ninth highest rate in the EU.
The Czech Republic and the Netherlands had the lowest at-risk-of-poverty rate (10 per cent), while Latvia had the highest (21 per cent).
One positive out of the past few years is that people are living longer. Life expectancy at birth was estimated at 81.6 years for Irish women and 76.8 years for Irish men in the period from 2005 to 2007.