Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, publishes comparisons of social protection expenditure across the different EU member states.
As well as encompassing social welfare expenditure, social protection expenditure, as defined by Eurostat, also covers expenditure in other areas such as health care, social housing, employment support programmes, e.g. certain FÁS programmes, and other social exclusion programmes. This is clearly a very different definition to "social welfare" as we understand it in this country.
The latest year for which this information is available in 1998, and so it does not take into account the very substantial increases in social welfare payments which this Government introduced in 1999 and 2000. Neither, of course, does it take account of the record increases for 2001 which we announced in last week's budget.
I am, however, arranging to have the Eurostat table circulated with the official report. It shows that social protection – broadly defined, as set out above – in Ireland represents a lower proportion of GDP than the EU average: the proportion in Ireland is 16%, compared to an EU average of 27.7%.
Some important points must be remembered in interpreting this. First, we have a relatively young population compared to most of our EU neighbours. Not alone does this mean our pension costs are lower, but we also have lower costs on health care and caring generally.