Despite grumbling about rising prices and creaking public services, Irish people enjoy one of the lowest inflation rates in the world, and the best quality of life in any country bar none. That's according to a survey of 180 countries to be published next week.
The Economist Pocket World in Figures 2006 draws together a number of previously published and new studies from the Economist Intelligence Unit, showing Ireland to have the fifth-highest GDP per head worldwide at $38,430 (€30,837).
Although its cost of living is just below that of New York, Ireland's consumer price inflation rate is said to be relatively low at 2.2 per cent last year - three times lower than the rate in Brazil, and 60 times lower than that in Zimbabwe.
However, office rents were found to be particularly high in Dublin, at $805 (€646) per square metre in January 2005. Only four other cities were found to be more expensive: London, Tokyo, Paris and Birmingham.
Ireland ranks first on a quality of life index, ahead of Switzerland and Norway. The calculation is based on a number of measures including political freedom; family and community life; climate and gender equality.
On a separate human development index, Ireland ranked 10th, ahead of Denmark, France and most other EU nation states. And while Irish people had just the 38th-highest life expectancy at 78.5 years, they still ranked higher than the US and Denmark, among other industrialised nations.
However, a worrying health trend was the rate of obesity, with a fifth of Irish men falling into this category, the 16th-highest rate in the world. While Ireland had the ninth-highest number of hospital beds per 1,000 population, it failed to register in the top 30 highest health spenders as a proportion of GDP.
In other lifestyle areas, Ireland had the second-highest rate of beer consumption per capita, and the third-highest rate of colour TV ownership per household, after the US and Belgium.
On overseas development, Ireland ranked ninth - along with Switzerland - in terms of bilateral and multilateral aid as a percentage of GDP. Saudi Arabia, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and France filled the higher spots.
