Do we spend more or less on health and education than the EU average?

[Brendan Burgess]

Interesting figures from the Hibernia Forum on the attached.


Conclusion

The mantra of the Left, that Ireland is low tax and a low government spending country, is not backed up by the facts. Compared to a more realistic measure of national income, Ireland raises more in taxes and spends more than the EU average, excluding social spending.

 

[galway_blow_in]

we spend peanuts on defense compared to most other countries and this distorts figures in terms of public spending

 

[newirishman]

Is this still a mantra though? I doubt that anyone seriously claims that the state doesn't spend a lot of money, and is overall high tax. The main issue seems to be with who gets how much money, so an issue of distribution.
(And of course the source of the money, i.e. which tax heads is being focused on).

There is where you'll find the (significant) differences, and many (or most) purely ideologically driven, for better or worse.

 

[Purple]

The difference in spend on OA Pensions's is interesting; we spend 3.4% of GNI whereas the EU average is 10.3% of GNI. This is due to our younger population and the fact that pensions are not income related.
The idea that your pension should be related to how much you paid in sounds good to me but the big issue is the graying of our population. When we have the same age profile as the EU average we'll need to spend significantly more of our National Income on pensions just to stand still.
When we allow for that demographic benefit which saves a fortune on pensions and on healthcare, and consider that we spend next to nothing on defense, we are actually spending a vast amount of money on the services we do provide.