Sir, – In relation to Pat Leahy's article on inequality ("Ireland is becoming more unequal? Wrong", Opinion & Analysis,December 5th), a number of points are worth bearing in mind if we are to provide a complete assessment of Ireland's performance.
The article notes that income inequality has fallen here while it has risen in other countries. This is indeed true and means that Ireland now ranks around middle among EU countries. It also means that Ireland’s performance with respect to its peer group is more a product of poor performance elsewhere than it is falling inequality here.
If we compare the level of inequality in Ireland today with European levels in the 1980s and 1990s, we would find Ireland to have higher inequality than about two-thirds of countries in western Europe.
The article also states that recent budgets have prioritised public investment, welfare increases and public services in what appears to be an adoption of social democratic principles in economic policymaking. One can observe an increase in public resources devoted to investment and, since Covid, to welfare spending. There have also been nominal increases in spending on public services. But when one takes a closer look, inflation-adjusted spending per person on services is projected to fall after the Covid wreckage clears.
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With Ireland being one of the only high-income countries without a full, universal health system, it is hard to reconcile its budgetary stance with an aspiration to have a social democratic welfare state like its neighbours. – Yours, etc,
ROBERT SWEENEY,
Economic and
Policy Analyst,
TASC – Think Tank
for Action on Social Change,
Merrion Square North,
Dublin 2.