In 1979 Irish income per head was $12,342, compared with $22,053 in Germany, $22,713 in France, $20,500 in the UK and $22,530 in Italy. Anyone who travelled back then will remember feeling poor when abroad. Today Irish income per head is on a par with Germany (2018: €41,753) and above the rest. No other country has caught up so quickly.
If you want to look at it another way, let’s review living standards. Forty years ago the average Irish person had a budget of €7.29 per day. This compared with the average German’s budget of €14.51 or Dutch person of €13.30. So Irish living standards were about half those prevailing in western Europe. Today the average Irish person is spending €53.49 a day. This compares with €57.30 for the average German and €51.49 for the average Dutch person. Again, this is an extraordinary rate of economic catch-up with our richer neighbours.
Interestingly, we see the fruits of this economic expansion, and the expansion of the middle class, very conspicuously in education. In the late 1960s only 36 per cent of Irish children finished school. Today 97 per cent do the Leaving Cert. As late as 1989, only 15 per cent of Irish people had a university degree; today that figure is 43 per cent, ranking us among the best educated-people in the world.
Not bad indeed!
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