Best Place to be born 2013 -Ireland 12th

WesternZulu

The Economist has recently published the best places to be born in 2013:

http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-born-2013-lottery-life

1. Switzerland
2. Australia
3. Norway
4. Sweden
5. Denmark
6. Singapore
7. New Zealand
8. Netherlands
9. Canada
10. Hong Kong
11. Finland
12. Ireland

16.Germany
=16. USA

25.Japan
26. France
27. Britain
28. Spain



80. Nigeria

Following Ireland coming 11th in the global ranking of education systems discussed in AH this week it seems that this country isn't a half bad place to live at all despite all the cries of self loathing that goes on in here at time.

The Economist also states Ireland's GDP per capita as $45,140. Now I know there is a lot of personal debt in this country but that is a case not unique to ourselves and come 9th in Europe (only behind Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the four Scandinavian countries).
It should be noted, we have a higher GDP per capita than that of Germany, France, and Britain.

I am sick to death of a lot of the contributors in AH depicting Ireland as some sort of sh*thole floating at the edge of Western Europe with not a prayer in the World.

Ireland's not a bad little country, a bit of positivity wouldn't go a miss...could be worse, you could be in Nigeria.

pcardin

OMG how little they need to buy you

pickarooney

France and Britain are bizarrely low. I'm not sure what categories Ireland could beat either in.

jester77

pickarooney wrote: »

France and Britain are bizarrely low. I'm not sure what categories Ireland could beat either in.

Irelands generous social welfare would be one.

Ghandee

username like that slagging off Nigeria:D

OneArt

That's stupid.

Why do they think being born in a country means you'll be living there for most of your life?

Leftist

another validation of national self esteem via an internet poll that solves nothing.

we're great at this. One poll said Ireland had the best standard of life about 5 years ago. Even though our hospitals and public transport infrastructure for example were a joke in comparison to the usual E.U standard.

80k approx emigrated in 2011. We are being held up by foreign money otherwise our arse would fall out. Our country consists of sprawling, poorly built and over expensive housing estates with poor amenities.

'but at least we're not nigeria'

LivelineDipso

I spend a lot of time in France and have lived there. It is on every possible level a far more eqalitarian and progressive society than Ireland. The public services are incredible. Everything works there. Most people seem healthy and happy. Ireland being rated above France is such pish!


The USA is only a good place if you have a good job. Otherwise you're left to die.

The UK is an a very unhappy country I find.

LivelineDipso

some reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5zXU1bQ3tQ

pickarooney

jester77 wrote: »

Irelands generous social welfare would be one.

I'm depressed that that's considered a reason for an adult in hard times let alone for a new born baby.

Blisterman

Well social welfare doesn't just benefit the people on it, more importantly it provides a reassurance to people that they will be looked after if they hit hard times.

Tombi!

Education is a reason? I think they should spend their time going to through the joke of a system we have.

Rented Mule

There are only 80 countries in the world ?

Who did this list ....Sarah Palin ?

Blisterman

For those interested the criteria they looked at:

material wellbeing as measured by GDP per head (in $, at 2006 constant PPPS); life expect­ancy at birth; the quality of family life, based primarily on divorce rates; the state of political freedoms; job se­curity (measured by the unemployment rate); climate (measured by two variables: the average deviation of minimum and maximum monthly temperatures from 14 degrees Celsius; and the number of months in the year with less than 30mm rainfall); personal physical security ratings (based primarily on recorded homicide rates and ratings for risk from crime and terrorism); quality of community life (based on membership in so­cial organisations); governance (measured by ratings for corruption); gender equality (measured by the share of seats in parliament held by women).

Obviously there are a lot of flaws in this, but I do think Ireland's a pretty great place to live.

conorhal

Leftist wrote: »

another validation of national self esteem via an internet poll that solves nothing.

we're great at this. One poll said Ireland had the best standard of life about 5 years ago. Even though our hospitals and public transport infrastructure for example were a joke in comparison to the usual E.U standard.

80k approx emigrated in 2011. We are being held up by foreign money otherwise our arse would fall out. Our country consists of sprawling, poorly built and over expensive housing estates with poor amenities.

'but at least we're not nigeria'

It's all part of the 'superior inferiority complex' the we so enjoy.
The only thing that excites us more then a scratch behind the ears from from Merkel and hearing how we are the 'best little country in the world!', is the opportunity for self flagilation and bemoaning what a dreadful bunch of backwards, parochial eejits we all are when some report names us the worst at something...
.......calling Nodin, come in nodin, we need some self loathing to balance out a potential outbreak of positivity on Boards!

BlatentCheek

I don't set much store by these surveys

The one by the Economist Intelligence Unit about five years ago saying Ireland was the best (or was it nearly the best?) place to live in the world was the same. They followed it with a special report on cities the next month that ranked Dublin next to Detroit in terms of quality of life. When nearly half of Ireland lives in the greater Dublin region it makes you wonder about the first report.

Also, I don't want to go all tinfoil hat but the Economist has a clear and acknowledged agenda that favours business interests, light regulation, low taxes etc etc; I don't think it's a coincidence that this report doesn't factor in, at least according to blisterman, access to good public services, be that in education, health, transport or any of the areas that most western european countries surpass us.

pickarooney

Blisterman wrote: »

For those interested the criteria they looked at:

material wellbeing as measured by GDP per head (in $, at 2006 constant PPPS); life expect­ancy at birth; the quality of family life, based primarily on divorce rates; the state of political freedoms; job se­curity (measured by the unemployment rate); climate (measured by two variables: the average deviation of minimum and maximum monthly temperatures from 14 degrees Celsius; and the number of months in the year with less than 30mm rainfall); personal physical security ratings (based primarily on recorded homicide rates and ratings for risk from crime and terrorism); quality of community life (based on membership in so­cial organisations); governance (measured by ratings for corruption); gender equality (measured by the share of seats in parliament held by women).

Obviously there are a lot of flaws in this, but I do think Ireland's a pretty great place to live.

Yeah, I'm not seeing where Ireland beats its European neighbours on any of those, unless you count the artificially low divorce rates which don't really indicate happy family lives. I mean, I understand that Ireland should score highly in these areas compared to most of the world, but I honestly don't see how it ranks higher than most of Western Europe. On climate alone it should lose 20 places, 15% unemployment should see it near the bottom on that meter and the life expectancy is the same as anywhere else in the developed world.

Blisterman

Well. Ireland's got a very low crime rate, high GDP per capita, a moderate climate, low corruption (I'm going to get some flack for ths, but it's true), a high level of political freedom and a lot of involvement in social organisations.

And most of the countries ahead of it are in Western Europe.

pickarooney

Blisterman wrote: »

Well. Ireland's got a very low crime rate, high GDP per capita, a moderate climate, low corruption (I'm going to get some flack for ths, but it's true), a high level of political freedom and a lot of involvement in social organisations.

And most of the countries ahead of it are in Western Europe.

The homicide rate (it's apparently based largely on this, the other factor mentioned is some vague, unmeasurable metric) is equal to the UK, fractionally higher than France and a smidgin less than Somalia.

It has one of the wettest climates in Europe. I couldn't work out if its being cold is a good or a bad thing according to their measurements but it's hard to see how it's objectively better than anywhere else.

It has a high GDP, but a concomitantly high cost of living which seems nonsensical to overlook.

On corruption Ireland is again worse than the UK, marginally higher than France.

On political freedom I would concede that the requirement for a referendum for any constitutional change works in Ireland's favour, regardless of whether the results are respected.

I've no idea about the social organisations or how they arrive at a figure for it. This could be an area where Ireland scores high but I'm not sure why.

Its good to see a thread going against the absolute drivel a lot of people are constantly posting in AH about how awful Ireland is and how they cant wait to leave. I'm sick to the teeth of morons raving on about how they cant wait to leave, I'll be glad to see the back of them anyway.

Ireland is a great place to live and people who moan about it either don't realise it or have some false idea of what its like to live in other places.

One great example is constantly referring to corruption when running down the country while as corruption goes Ireland is not bad at all.

Another gem is that all our skilled workers are having to leave for work, there are no doubt areas where its tough to get work, construction being one, but highly skilled jobs which are not one of them. In my line of work there are people coming to Ireland from other countries to work, its known as a great country and a great place to work and there are better opportunities here than in a lot of the countries Irish people are running off to.

I can already see the people in this thread that will look for every excuse to rubbish the report, there are people in AH that would swear black was white in order to spew their anti-Ireland agenda.

FloatingVoter

A good social welfare net should you need it.
A comparatively good health service (don't get pregnant or sick on weekends).
No volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis nor other biblical crap.
Discounting Irish, a good education system if you want it.
A dependably corrupt breed of politician (not Mugabe or Putin level, but nevertheless open to friendly bribes).
A complete lack of organised religion (even though we'll say otherwise in the census).
Jedward.
Daniel.
Twink.

Yeah, we're ticking along nicely.

pickarooney

FloatingVoter wrote: »

A good social welfare net should you need it.
A comparatively good health service (don't get pregnant or sick on weekends).
No volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis nor other biblical crap.
Discounting Irish, a good education system if you want it.
A dependably corrupt breed of politician (not Mugabe or Putin level, but nevertheless open to friendly bribes).
A complete lack of organised religion (even though we'll say otherwise in the census).
Jedward.
Daniel.
Twink.

Yeah, we're ticking along nicely.

This really only explains why Ireland is higher than the likes of Haïti or Gabon.

FloatingVoter

pickarooney wrote: »

This really only explains why Ireland is higher than the likes of Haïti or Gabon.

Knock the last three monkeys off my list and I could have been referring to the UK (sub in 3 of theirs).

pickarooney

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Knock the last three monkeys off my list and I could have been referring to the UK (sub in 3 of theirs).

So Twink, Daniel and Jedward are worth 15 places on their own? :pac:

Madam_X

pickarooney wrote: »

France and Britain are bizarrely low. I'm not sure what categories Ireland could beat either in.

More relaxed pace of life perhaps?

It's true that not being as bad as Nigeria or wherever is not a boast, but it is a fair point here on Boards when Ireland is spoken of as being as bad as Nigeria. The little emos who enjoy such freedoms and comforts here haven't a clue.

Those who feel Ireland is too bigged up... well there are plenty of self flagellators to balance it out. Most people are rational though and view it as not the best but not the worst.

WanabeOlympian

Great positive new story op. Thanks for that! I love my country

pickarooney

Madam_X wrote: »

More relaxed pace of life perhaps?

It's not something you can really put a figure on though. Maybe average commuting times or something, although they don't list it as a criterion.

It's true that not being as bad as Nigeria or wherever is not a boast, but it is a fair point here on Boards when Ireland is spoken of as being as bad as Nigeria. The little emos who enjoy such freedoms and comforts here haven't a clue.

Those who feel Ireland is too bigged up... well there are plenty of self flagellators to balance it out. Most people are rational though and view it as not the best but not the worst.

The Economist didn't put this together with the purpose of saying 'Suck it, AH, Ireland is the ѕhit', though. This is supposedly a rationally calculated index with no obvious promotional motive.

H3llR4iser

Sorry to say this, but a lot of people have no idea what they are talking about; Especially some claims about education, cost of living and taxation being supposedly terrible are quite wrong.

To make a long story short, if Ireland was that bad there wouldn't be so many Europeans living and working here - including myself.

Crime...funny how some people cling to statistics to claim Ireland to be a cesspit; In truth, statistics lie a little bit, especially when only the ones about homicides are considered. Go around the outskirts of Dublin or Cork, and you'll see countless houses with no gates and a flimsy wooden main door; Go around Italy and you'll see residential complexes enclosed in tall gates, spiked fences and armoured doors and windows everywhere. Wonder why...

pickarooney

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Sorry to say this, but a lot of people have no idea what they are talking about; Especially some claims about education, cost of living and taxation being supposedly terrible are quite wrong.

To make a long story short, if Ireland was that bad there wouldn't be so many Europeans living and working here - including myself.

Is anyone in this thread saying that Ireland is that bad, though? Are people not just questioning if it's really that good, compared with lower-ranked countries who would seem to match, if not beat Ireland on every score? You seem to be fabricating an argument to refute.

4zn76tysfajdxp

How could they know if nobody's been born in 2013 yet?

ToddyDoody

I heard it was Cork that brought us right up on the ratings.

Blisterman

What I can't understand is the amount of people on Boards.ie who moan about how crap it is to live in Ireland, yet still choose to live there.

Nonoperational

It's completely pointless trying to discuss it anymore. People exaggerate things so much to further the point they're trying to make, if you listened to half the **** that's spouted the only logical thing to do would be set fire to yourself and run screaming through the streets.

It's a tough time now but it will improve, and it could be a hell of a lot worse.

BlatentCheek

Leilani Damaged Faun wrote: »

I can already see the people in this thread that will look for every excuse to rubbish the report, there are people in AH that would swear black was white in order to spew their anti-Ireland agenda.

I don't have any anti-Ireland agenda and I agree with you that one dimensional "everything in Ireland is ****" posts are tiresome but surely given the context of economic disaster, unprecedented public debt and ongoing cuts to services and rises in taxes for the foreseeable future we're allowed to question a report telling us that we're living in the 12th best country to be born in 2013, without being attacked for bending the truth.

Ireland is on the whole still a good place to live by global standards but we face extremely serious problems and I don't think that this report reflects that. GDP per head, at 2006 rates, is hardly representative of most Irish peoples income in 2012, or 2013 for that matter.

Jamsiek

BlatentCheek wrote: »

I don't have any anti-Ireland agenda and I agree with you that one dimensional "everything in Ireland is ****" posts are tiresome but surely given the context of economic disaster, unprecedented public debt and ongoing cuts to services and rises in taxes for the foreseeable future we're allowed to question a report telling us that we're living in the 12th best country to be born in 2013, without being attacked for bending the truth.

Ireland is on the whole still a good place to live by global standards but we face extremely serious problems and I don't think that this report reflects that. GDP per head, at 2006 rates, is hardly representative of most Irish peoples income in 2012, or 2013 for that matter.

I'd love to know how they came to this conclusion. I left Ireland this year because I couldn't stand the gloom and doom every time I listened to people talking about negative equity and no work etc.
I welcome any good news about Ireland but I remain to be convinced.

Anyway I like where I am in Vancouver so I'm happy to stay here for the foreseeable but who knows.
The huge amount of Irish here is making it more unlikely that people will get homesick due to their friends joining them so that is not good news for Ireland IMO

Anyway I hope these figures are accurate and not something made up to get the Irish emigrants to return home for nothing.

Sunnyisland

Nice to read something positive about our country.