Ireland, the most expensive EU state, has bloc’s highest male life expectancy

Ireland has the third fastest growing population in the EU along with the highest male life expectancy, yet it is also the most expensive place for goods and services while generating the second highest level of greenhouse gas emissions per person, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The agency’s latest Measuring Ireland’s Progress report provides a snapshot of the State across a range of metrics from social and economic to environmental and health, and how it compares to other European countries.

It showed that Ireland’s population – at 5.1 million in 2022 – had grown at the third fastest rate in the EU in the previous 10 years, rising at a multiple of the EU average (10.3 per cent versus 1.4 per cent).

The proportion of Ireland’s population aged 45 or over increased from 34.9 per cent to 40.2 per cent between 2012 and 2022, the report noted, while the proportion aged under 45 decreased from 65 per cent to 59.8 per cent.

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Male life expectancy at birth was 80.8 years in Ireland in 2020, the highest of any EU member state, and 3.3 years higher than the EU average, and an increase of 22.2 years on the 1926 figure.

Female life expectancy, at 84.4 years, was also one of the highest and 1.2 years above the EU average, and an increase of 25.5 years since 1926.

The report also noted that Ireland had a fertility rate of 1.8 in 2021, which tied with France, the Czech Republic and Romania as the highest rate in the EU.

While Ireland had the fastest growing economy in the EU, it also had the highest prices for basic goods and services. Prices were found to be on average 43.8 per cent higher than the EU average.

In 2011 prices in Ireland were the fifth highest in the EU at 21.2 per cent above average but the CSO noted that price levels in Ireland relative to the EU average have “increased each year since then”.

Continually labelled as a laggard in terms of mitigating climate change, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions per capita were 11.6 tonnes in 2020, which was the second highest in the EU after Luxembourg. The EU average was 7.4 tonnes per capita and the lowest was Malta at 4.1 tonnes.

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The report also highlighted that the amount of municipal waste generated in Ireland rose from 2.8 million tonnes to 3.2 million tonnes between 2010 and 2020, while the proportion of that waste recovered rose from 38.1 per cent to 83 per cent over the same period.

Separately, the number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) graduates in Ireland was 39.9 per 1,000 persons aged 20-29 in 2020, the highest rate in the EU.