THE COUNTRY may be caught in the grip of a banking crisis and a ballooning budget deficit but Irish people are among the most charitable and happiest in the world.
This is the finding of a new study, which ranks Ireland joint-third in the world rankings for giving money and time to charitable purposes and for helping strangers. The country also scores well on its wellbeing index, which found people here are ranked 16th happiest out of 153 countries.
The research, which is published by the Charities Aid Foundation in Britain, is based on a Gallup survey of 195,000 people in 153 countries. The fieldwork for the study in the Republic was based on 1,000 telephone interviews with people in April 2009.
Ireland was ranked fifth in the world for giving money to charity, 17th in the world for volunteering time and 22nd in the world for helping a stranger. Overall this ranks Ireland
joint-third with Canada in the foundation’s “world giving index”, which is headed by Australia and New Zealand.
Some 72 per cent of Irish respondents said in the previous month they had given money to charity; 35 per cent said they had volunteered time; and 60 per cent said they had helped a stranger.
The study also collected data on people’s overall happiness and ranked countries on a score of one to 10 on a wellbeing index. Ireland scored seven points on the index, which was well above an average score of 5.4. This ranks the country 16th-happiest overall.
Richard Harrison, research director with the Charities Aid Foundation, said the findings probably reflected the fact that wellbeing and happiness was not all about the economy. He said work-life balance played a part, which may be reflected in the fact that Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland all scored very well.
“The link between being happy and giving money to charity is stronger than that between wealth and giving,” said Mr Harrison.
Nevertheless, he said that generally wealthier nations tend to give more money to charity, while poorer nations tend to give more of their time and help strangers.
Malta was found to be the country with the largest percentage of the population
(83 per cent) giving money, the people of Turkmenistan are the most generous with their time (with 61 per cent having given time to charity) and Liberia was top of the list for helping a stranger (76 per cent).
Madagascar is bottom of the rankings with 12 per cent saying they give money to charity.
The Charities Aid Foundation is a charity in Britain, which aims to encourage a culture of giving. It claims the “world giving index” is the largest study ever carried out into charitable behaviour.