The Government has rejected the finding of a United Nations report that Ireland, in spite of rising prosperity, continues to have the second-highest level of poverty in the Western world, writes Paul Cullen, Development Correspondent
The UN Human Development Report published yesterday shows that Ireland has entered the top 10 of the world's quality of life league for the first time. This is an improvement of two places over last year's Human Development Index and eight places over 2002.
The index, an aggregate of economic performance, life expectancy and health and education standards, is the leading global measure of quality of life in 177 countries.
That performance was marred, however, by a finding that 15.3 per cent of Irish people live in poverty. Only the US, with a score of 15.8 per cent, had a worse record of the 17 Western countries surveyed.
The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, said the statistics used to compile the poverty index dated from 1996, were based on income, and did not take into account other "relevant factors".
In fact, only two of the four statistics used to compile the index date from the 1990s. In any case, all of the figures would have been supplied by Government departments to international bodies.
Mr Kitt said the Government was continuing to tackle domestic poverty through its National Anti-Poverty Strategy, which uses a different method to estimate poverty. The Government says about 5 per cent of the population live in "consistent poverty".
The Department of Education also doubted the accuracy of the report, saying the figures used for illiteracy had not been updated since 1995. Some 22.3 per cent of Irish people are described as functionally illiterate, worse than in any other Western country.
The report also shows, however, that of the top 10 countries on the Human Development Index, Ireland has the lowest life expectancy and among the lowest spending on health and education.
Irish women's earned income is only 40 per cent that of men's, and women are under-represented in parliament and management.
The report finds the richest 10 per cent of Irish people are 9.7 times wealthier than the poorest 10 per cent. Inequality in Ireland is higher than in any other Western country apart from the US.
Economic success largely explains Ireland's strong performance in the report. Irish people are now the third wealthiest in the world after Luxembourg and Norway, with per capita gross domestic product, adjusted for purchasing power, at $36,360, just short of Norway's $36,600.