Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, publishes comparisons of social protection expenditure across the different EU member states. However, 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 is understood in this country and for this reason it is not possible to provide the comparative data requested.
The latest year for which comparative data on social protection expenditure has been published by Eurostat is 1998, and so it does not take into account the very substantial increases in social welfare payments which the Government introduced in 1999 and 2000. Neither, of course, does it take account of the record social welfare increases which have been introduced this year.
Table 1 sets out the comparative data on social protection expenditure, published by Eurostat for the years 1990 to 1998.
In making any comparisons, a number of important points must be taken into account – firstly, 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.
Second, while occupational pensions and benefits play an important role in the overall social protection system in Ireland, information on the significant amount of expenditure involved is not currently available for Ireland. Accordingly, the figures provided by Eurostat for social protection expenditure seriously understate the actual level of expenditure involved in this country as compared with other EU member states. The Pensions Board in its National Pensions Policy Initiative estimated that expenditure on occupational pensions alone would be in the region of 4% to 5% of GDP.
Third, the Eurostat figures are based on GDP, but it is recognised that in Ireland GNP, rather than GDP, is the better measure of the income available to society. The figures based on GDP therefore understate the proportion of our income that is spent on social protection.