Dublin ranked 25th best city to live in

DESPITE OUR tumble into the economic abyss and the proliferation of soggy summers, Dublin is still ranked 25 out of 215 cities for quality of life, according to a survey released yesterday.

The Worldwide Quality of Living Survey, conducted by consultants Mercer, placed Dublin ahead of New York, Barcelona, Tokyo, Paris and London.

The study also identified the cities with the best infrastructure – Dublin was ranked 58th.

The annual survey aims to help multinational companies work out how much extra money to pay workers if they are relocated to another country. The farther down the list a country is, the more a company has to pay its staff to work there.

Some 39 factors were measured in the cities, under headings including political, social, economic and sociocultural environments. The survey also examined health and sanitation, schools and education, public services and transport, availability of consumer goods and climate.

But it did not measure national debt, dissatisfaction with government, the doom-and-gloom factor or rising unemployment.

Vienna in Austria was found to be the city with the best quality of life, measuring 108.6 on the quality of life index. It beat Zurich and Geneva, both in Switzerland, the Canadian city of Vancouver, and Auckland in New Zealand.

For obvious reasons, Baghdad in Iraq was last in the survey, scoring only 14.4. Also trailing in the rankings were Bangui in the Central African Republic, Ndjamena in Chad, Brazzaville in the Congo, and Khartoum in Sudan.

Dublin’s index number was 103.6. The city has hovered in roughly the same territory for the last five years, with its best year in 2005 when it ranked 22nd.

In terms of infrastructure, Dublin did not do so well and was beaten by cities including Birmingham, Glasgow and London in the UK, Tel Aviv in Israel, and Seoul in South Korea.

Patrick Robinson, of Mercer in Ireland, said Dublin’s problems with traffic congestion, rail transport and services to the airport contributed to its lower ranking in terms of infrastructure.

But the capital scored high on areas such as schools and education and the availability of water and electricity, he said. The survey also scored Dublin high on economic environment, partly because of the proliferation of financial institutions in the city. “It wouldn’t look at their performance,” Mr Robinson hastened to add.

On the availability of goods, one of the factors considered to contribute to quality of life, Dublin also scored high. But on housing it scored lower because of costs and the poor availability of a wide range of options.

Health and medical services also produced a high score for Dublin, mainly due to our few infectious diseases and lack of “troublesome, destructive animals”, Mr Robinson said.

On natural environment, the capital scored quite highly, partly because its earthquake record and the lack of fatal tornados. But the rain did drag down the city somewhat, with Dublin scoring only seven out of 10 for climate.