# Social Protection spending in Ireland is 125% of the EU average!



## Brendan Burgess (18 Dec 2012)

A very interesting article in the Sunday Business Post by Donal de Buitléir which is reproduced on [broken link removed]

Social Protection Spending (social welfare, education and health) is 125% of the EU average which makes us the 4th highest in Europe.

"If we adjust the Eurostat data for the  proportion of the population over 65, we had the highest public health  spending as a percentage of GNP in Europe by a distance — and over 50  per cent above the EU 27 average.


The OECD ranks the Irish health system 28th out of 28 in terms of productivity."

and 

"The OECD notes that despite spending significantly more than the OECD average on health, our performance is around the OECD average. "

[broken link removed]


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## Purple (18 Dec 2012)

Very interesting but not in the least surprising.
The proportion of total budget that's spent on wages is also significant.


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## ajapale (18 Dec 2012)

Brendan Burgess said:


> "If we adjust the Eurostat data for the  proportion of the population over 65"



What does this adjustment entail? If you dont adjust are the figures any different?


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## Brendan Burgess (18 Dec 2012)

Hi AJ

It is all explained [broken link removed]. It's a well written report and worth reading. Don't be put off by the size of it. It's mainly tables and appendices. 



> The age demographic adjustment involves normalizing each country’s  proportion of over 65′s to the OECD average of 14.9%. The adjustment  factor is obtained by dividing the OECD average by the individual  country’s proportion. This number is then multiplied by the expenditure  and output data to give the demographically adjusted figure.



Ireland spends 7.7% of its GDP on public health which puts it in 13th place. 

But with such a young population in Ireland one would expect us to be spending a much lower percentage of our GDP on public health. When you make the adjustment we rise to first place.  

Brendan


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