State compares poorly with peers on poverty

Proportionately more people live in poverty in Ireland than in any other industrialised nation outside the US, according to a United Nations report published today.

For the fourth year in succession, Ireland languishes near the bottom of the UN Development Programme's league table measuring the extent of "human poverty".

The organisation's Human Development Report ranks Ireland 16th out of 17 Western countries, with 15.3 per cent of the population living in poverty. Sweden, at the top of the table, has just 6.8 per cent in poverty.

Ireland's poor showing is largely explained by high levels of functional illiteracy - almost 23 per cent of the population cannot perform basic tasks such as reading a bus timetable - and the non-availability of recent figures for long-term unemployment.

Only the US, with 16.5 per cent in poverty, is worse than Ireland. The UK comes 15th, while the table is headed by Sweden, with a rating of just 6.8 per cent.

The identification of persistent poverty and inequality in Irish society is likely to prove highly embarrassing for the Government.

Overall, the report rates Ireland as a desirable place in which to live, with a well-developed technology infrastructure and growing wealth, but with glaring inequalities in the distribution of wealth within the State.

In the Human Development Index (HDI), the main measure of social progress used in the report, Ireland ranks 18th of the 162 states surveyed. This is the same as last year.

HDI is a widely accepted measure of the quality of life which takes account of income levels, life expectancy and educational enrolment.

This year Canada has been displaced by Norway and Australia jointly as the most desirable place in which to live.

Sierra Leone, where life expectancy is 38 years and annual income is $400, comes last in the HDI. The bottom 28 countries on the index are all in Africa. Another 29 are not ranked because their statistics are unreliable.

The report shows Ireland spends less on health than any other Western nation, and has proportionately fewer doctors than most. With 219 doctors per 100,000 people, Ireland has fewer doctors than Argentina, Azerbaijan and nearly every state in eastern Europe. Military expenditure, at less than 1 per cent of GDP, is also the lowest of any Western state.

Cigarette consumption, at an average of 2,412 per Irish adult, is one of the highest in the West; Norwegians, in contrast, smoke an average of 760 cigarettes a year.

Although life expectancy has improved, from 71.3 years in the 1970s to 76.1 years in the latter half of the 1990s, it has risen faster in other countries. Japan is the only country where life expectancy exceeds 80 years. Irish women can expect to live up to six years longer than Irish men.

Ireland has easily the highest economic growth rate in the Western world, averaging 6.1 per cent a year for the 1990s. Our per-capita GDP, at $25,918, is on a par with other industrialised states, and ahead of the UK, Germany, France, Sweden and Japan.

Men in Ireland earn up to 2-1/2 times more than women, the worst imbalance for any Western country.