A new survey paints a vivid picture of the lifestyle of Ireland's gay people. Róisín Inglelooks at a community in the pink.

At his gig last week in the RDS, singer George Michael had a message for the gay community in Ireland, while introducing a song written about his gay uncle who killed himself more than 40 years ago.

He urged Irish men and women who were still in the closet to be open about their sexuality. There has never been, he said, a better time to be gay in the world. It was a powerful moment and his passionate plea was met with applause and cheers from many of the 40,000-strong crowd.

It's only 14 years since homosexuality was decriminalised here, a fact which lent even more poignancy to the singer's message. In those 14 years the Irish gay scene has evolved to the point where there are now Pride marches all over the country, well-attended annual events, such as the Alternative Miss Ireland contest, and an openly gay man presenting daytime TV. Dublin boasts a gay theatre festival, a lesbian arts festival and a lesbian and gay film festival, all of which attract healthy audiences, both gay and straight. There is a gay and lesbian choir, Gloria, and even a gay rugby team.

Next year one of the largest gay events in the world, the gay rugby world championships, will be hosted here. Alongside negative stories concerning "gay bashing" or homophobia, issues such as gay marriage, adoption and equality are all on the social, media and - for some parties at least - political agenda. Even allowing for the likes of Ian Paisley jnr, there has, George Michael would probably agree, never been a better time to be gay in Ireland.

And yet, little is known about the gay community in terms of their financial situation, their spending habits, their political leanings, their leisure pursuits, their relationships and their aspirations. The idea of a "pink euro" is touted but until now there has been no concrete data to back it up.

A survey released today, the first of its kind in Ireland, holds up a mirror to a community that has been largely ignored in statistical terms. The survey is good news for gay people, as it increases visibility and inspires confidence for the future. Heterosexuals, meanwhile, might just find the survey challenges some of their own perceptions of that community.

The survey, commissioned by Gay Community News (GCN), was carried out by international consulting company Out Now, which specialises in analysing gay and lesbian audiences, between October 2006 and January 2007. The survey presents an image of a vibrant community made up of sophisticated consumers, the vast majority of whom are out to their friends and family.

They are a group with massive spending power, with the survey indicating that the gay community earns €8.75 billion before tax each year. Most of the respondents are in relationships and would get married if that option were available to them. And, according to the survey, if the gay community had its way, a Labour/Green government would have been formed after the last general election. However, more of those surveyed said they would support Fianna Fáil than Fine Gael.

Editor of the partly government funded GCN, Brian Finnegan, commissioned the survey in a bid to attract mainstream advertising that, while it has come out in force to target readers of gay publications across Europe and America, has been "reluctant to bite" in Ireland.

Finnegan believes there are two reasons for this. Firstly, until now no figures existed to back up the financial clout he always suspected existed in the gay community. "I know lots of rich gay people, and I know a lot of gay people who shop and shop and shop," he says. Secondly, he believes there is a perception of the gay community as a powerless minority who are afraid to walk out of the pub in case they get beaten up, a group who think about gay rights or gay marriage 24 hours a day.

"Those issues are important but it's not the whole picture. The gay people that I know on a day-to-day level are just like anybody else. They go on their holidays, they want nice products, they like good cars and they shop more than straight people shop. Because most of them have few responsibilities, their disposable income is large. They don't have children to spend it on and that's what the majority of adult heterosexuals spend their money on."

According to official figures from the UK treasury department, 6 per cent of the adult population are gay, so assuming that situation is reflected in Ireland, this means that just under 200,000 Irish adults are gay or lesbian. Around 1,900 GCN readers responded to the survey. Almost 60 per cent is based in Dublin and just over 70 per cent of the respondents is male. The average respondent is a gay male or lesbian female aged between 25 and 44.

The survey shows clearly that the pink euro is not a myth, something Finnegan hopes savvy advertisers will pick up on. The average full-time income of GCN readers was found to be €44,614 , which, if replicated across the gay population, would mean the average gay person earns almost €13,000 more per year than the average Irish industrial wage. A substantial 35 per cent of respondents has an annual salary of between €40,000 and €100,000.

How they spend their money is also examined in the survey. Based on the estimated number of gay people in Ireland, the annual gay clothing bill comes to €341 million. GCN readers also revealed they spend €52 million per year on grooming, including skin, hair and fragrance products and services. Based on the total gay population estimate, the annual gay bill for alcohol comes to €669 million.

According to the survey, readers of the magazine take several holidays a year, spending €125 million on leisure travel. The survey estimates that the gay travel market is worth €737 million annually (Finnegan is about to take his sixth trip away this year). Apart from the UK and Ireland, the US, Spain and France are the most popular holiday destinations. Almost 70 per cent of respondents said they wanted to be near a gay area while on holiday and the same percentage booked their accommodation online.

INTERNET ACTIVITY IS strong across the board among the gay community.The average spent by GCN readers shopping online generally is €3,766 a year. More than 42 per cent spend more than €2,000 shopping online while 86 per cent shop online at least once every three months.

The economic profile of the gay community is hugely important, says Finnegan. "Money really does talk," he says. "Gay liberation only grounded itself when the 'pink pound' emerged and the sector began to be identified as a marketing niche. It advanced our community in a way that grassroots political education could never have done." He points to Riga in Latvia, where last year participants in the gay Pride parade had bags of human excrement thrown at them by opponents of the march. As a result, the London parade - one of the biggest in the world attracting millions to the centre of the city each year - twinned with Riga, bringing its financial might and influence to bear on the event. With London's powerful pink pound on board, a number of official events were organised to coincide with the Riga parade, including an official reception at the British embassy. The parade passed without incident earlier this month with the backing of local officials.

But the survey is not just about money. It looks at the lives of gay people, their relationships and how open or not they are about their sexuality.

Challenging a perception of gay people as promiscuous, just over 30 per cent of the respondents are in relationships lasting between two and five years, while a further 20 per cent have been with their partner for between five and 10 years. And almost 90 per cent of gay couples surveyed would choose to legally formalise these relationships if the relevant laws were enacted.

Civil-partnership legislation enables a same-sex couple to register as civil partners of each other, and affords them the same rights as a married couple, in areas such as tax, social security, inheritance and workplace benefits. Such legislation exists in the UK but not in Ireland, but the situation is currently under review here. On the issue of whether they would choose marriage or a civil partnership, the community is divided. Just over half say they would prefer civil partnership, while the rest would prefer full marriage.

About 10 per cent of respondents have their relationships officially recognised in other countries, while the same percentage have children. There were no questions posed in the survey about sex because, says Finnegan, "another misperception is that all gay people think about is sex and every decision we make is based on that. However, straight people's sexuality does not fundamentally influence every decision they make in life. And it's the same with gay people."

The survey also showed that the majority of gay people, 79 per cent, are out to their friends while just over 60 per cent were out to their family. But at work there is still a large section of gay people who hide their sexuality. Just over 50 per cent are out to everyone at their workplace with 33 per cent saying they are out to some.

Ian Johnson of Out Now, the international consultants which carried out the survey, says this should be of concern. "These days in the corporate sector there is an emphasis on team-building and trust, it's a really critical part of the career path. Think of all that energy being wasted keeping your sexuality a secret from your employer or your colleagues, energy that could be devoted to your job. We should be alarmed."

More generally, Johnson stressed that it was "critically important" that the overall survey figures are seen as average results that "mask diversity" in the gay community.

"These figures tell us more than we have ever known about lesbian and gay life in Ireland but they are not reflective of everybody's experience. Homosexual does not mean homogenous, we need to remember that," he says.

Finnegan was cautious but optimistic about the continued evolution of the community here, saying there is still a long way to go, that some gay people are isolated and that some of the older generation may have a different experience than what is reflected in the survey.

"Having said that, it's a very positive thing that last year we had an issue of GCN edited and written by teenagers who were happy to be photographed and out with the support and encouragement of their parents. That would have been unthinkable when I was growing up," he says. "Irish society is evolving and gay people are growing in self-acceptance, and establishing a grounding for themselves in the world. They will never go backwards, they will only become more and more part of the mainstream."

The survey is published in GCN today. www.gcn.ie