Ireland has one of the highest rates in Europe of people who are at risk of poverty, but it also has high levels of employment and one of the best rates of productivity, according to a new report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Measuring Ireland's Progress 2006 paints a mixed picture of the State's development in recent years.
It says the Republic had the fifth-highest gross national income in 2005 among 25 EU countries, up two places on 2004, but one in five people were at risk of poverty.
The period between 1996 and 2005 also saw investment in infrastructure such as construction, buildings and machinery increase by some 43 per cent, with large increases also in the number of internet connections among private households in 2006.
But the report notes that when compared with other European countries, price levels in Ireland are second only to Denmark, while spending on social protection in 2004 was only half that in Sweden.Ireland also came 12th out of 26 EU countries reporting levels of internet access in private households last year.
Elsewhere, the report says the pupil-teacher ratio at primary level in 2003/2004 was among the highest in the EU, despite non-capital public expenditure on education per student rising by 45 per cent between 1996 and 2005, after allowing for inflation.
Ireland's international trade competitiveness has also deteriorated since 2000, mainly due to higher inflation and an appreciating euro, the report shows.
An average of €2,223 (at 2003 prices) per person was spent on non-capital public healthcare expenditure in Ireland in 2004, representing an increase of more than 80 per cent on the 1995 level.
But overall expenditure on public and private health as a percentage of GDP was lower than the EU average that year,
The employment rate in Ireland rose from 56.1 per cent in 1997 to 68.1 per cent in 2006 - including an increase of more than 14 per cent in the employment rate for women.
Life expectancy at birth for women in Ireland, at 81.8 years in 2005 is slightly below the EU average, while at 77.1 years for men it is 1.3 years above this average, according to the report.
The percentage of waste sent to landfills in Ireland decreased from 71.6 per cent in 2003, to 65.4 per cent in 2005, with almost 65 per cent of glass waste, and 54 per cent of metal waste recycled that year. But Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions stood at 125.4 per cent of 1990 levels in 2005 - which is 12.4 per cent higher than the Kyoto 2008-2012 target for the country.
Among the key statistics of the report, published yesterday, are:
The proportion of Irish people at risk of poverty, after pensions and social transfer payments were taken into account, was 20 per cent in 2005. This is broadly comparable to 2004 levels and is one of the highest rates in the EU 27.
The effect of pensions and social transfers on reducing the "at-risk-of-poverty" rate was also low in Ireland compared with other EU countries, according to the report.
The population increased by 15.7 per cent, to almost 4.24 million, between 1997 and 2006. This is the second-highest rate of increase among the EU 27 countries behind Cyprus, with Ireland also having the second-highest fertility rate in the EU after France in 2005.
The rate of unemployment increased from a low of 3.6 per cent in 2001 to 4.3 per cent last year. But Ireland had the third-lowest unemployment rate in the EU 27 in 2006, standing at just over half of the EU 27 average of 7.9 per cent. The long-term unemployment rate in Ireland was 1.4 per cent in 2005, compared to an EU 27 average of 4 per cent.
More than 6 per cent of men and 7.5 per cent of women in Ireland were in consistent poverty in 2005. Just over 10 per cent of children under 15 were in consistent poverty in 2005.