"Could do better" is the clear verdict of this latest report on Ireland's performance in creating an equitable, prosperous place to live in.
The UNDP's Human Development Report is the best measure we have of quality of life, and its publication each year is eagerly awaited throughout the world. This year, after six years at the top, Canada loses its position as the country with the highest quality of life to Norway, followed by Australia. The US, which has high income but also widespread poverty, drops from third to sixth position.
For Ireland, the report will add fuel to the "Brussels versus Boston" debate. All our economic indices are clicking the right way, we're earning more than Germans, Japanese and Britons, yet the report shows that so much is not right.
Our life expectancy is not what it should be, our society has huge inequalities and massive illiteracy, and we have failed to improve our showing on the Human Development Index, the main indicator of quality of life around the world.
If progress was measured on economic wealth alone, then Ireland's surging GDP would earn it a place in the world's top 10. Instead, because of the above failings, we languish in 18th place, just behind Germany and ahead of New Zealand.
In this respect, Ireland takes after the US, which has the second-highest per capita income after Luxembourg, but ranks only 12th for educational enrolment and 24th in life expectancy.
So have we pursued economic growth at the expense of a more rounded development and an improvement in the quality of life that touches all bases? Or will the rising tide of economic success eventually lift all boats and thereby improve our ratings?
As the Government will inevitably point out, not all the data used in this report are up to date; given the mass of statistics gathered from all over the globe, this would be almost impossible. Ireland's continuing economic surge and falling long-term unemployment is arguably not fully reflected in the report, which is, however, based on official figures.
The links between cause and effect are apparent from this report. Cigarette consumption in Ireland is higher than elsewhere, and life expectancy is lower. We spend proportionately less on health and have fewer doctors, so we shouldn't be surprised at the current crisis in the health service.
Ireland is ranked as a "leader" on a new index measuring technological innovation and achievement, and Dublin features as a leading global hub for technology. However, our ranking of 12th, behind countries such as Finland (1st) and South Korea (5th), comes as something of a disappointment. Ireland is the 12th-largest exporter of high-tech products, behind the US, Japan and Germany.
Globally, the report contains mixed news. Countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, South Korea and Portugal have achieved large increases in the Human Development Index during the 1990s. However, in eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and 20 African countries, the index has been falling.
When world leaders attending last year's UN Millennium Summit made high-flown promises to eradicate global poverty by the year 2015, they could hardly have expected that their goals would go off course so quickly. Yet in dozens of countries, the report finds, promises to cut child mortality and provide safe drinking water are well behind schedule.
The report is decidedly technology friendly, and it asserts that developing countries could reap huge benefits from genetically-modified organisms. GMO risks can be managed, it believes.
"Ignoring technological breakthroughs in medicine, agriculture and information will mean missing opportunities to transform the lives of poor people," the UNDP administrator, Mr Mark Malloch Brown, says.
Even old technologies frowned upon in the West may be essential for developing countries. DDT, for example, is a pollutant with severe environmental consequences, but in some developing countries it may provide the only affordable means of tackling malaria, the report suggests.