http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1425006&issue_id=12683&eid=132426

We rank among happiest in Europe despite income gap

IRISH people are among the happiest and most content in Europe despite having the widest gap between the well-off and the poor, and inferior health and transport services.

Jaysus some people just whinge and moan!

But do countries not generally balance out?
Finland, for example, can be quite expensive. Houses are actually very cheap and the standard of living is generally excellent but cars, food, clothes, drink etc are all quite expensive. The tax is high and the salaries suck, especially in certain fields. Both the missus & I would (I hope) be looking at a nice hike in salary if we moved back to Ireland.
Housing is definitly my biggest concern, plus childcare, after that i’d say it’s not that far off Finland. And people seem to mamage in Ireland … but how do they manage? Are most Irish people these days up to their necks in depth?

Exactly? Why? Probably cause you love it, everyone is a Paddy and understand the expressions you use, they have Tayto and good tae in the shops, the Guinness is good, everyone is happy to see ya …
But to be honest the more I see of other bits of the Europe I realise how bad things can be.

High prices on homes, and low wages. High taxes (VAT), poor public transport, high car insurance … the list goes on. But I guess the biggest problem is money, it’s too frigging expensive for almost everything in Ireland.

Last time I was up home in Donegal Town, and nice house was going for about 450,000e, a plain old council house was going for about 250,000e. With the pay and these kinds of prices I can’t figure out how people manage. I was in Amsterdam earlier this year, a nice 2 bedroom flat costs about 225,000e, I asked me friend who lives in Dublin and he reckoned the same thing there would cost about 500,000.

So how did we manage it? The Netherlands is about the size of Northern Iron, and has a population of 16 million, and Ireland which is 4 times the size with a 1/4 of the population is more expensive for poperty (and beer)?

But ye can’t beat the craic!

U need to make this box bigger, i can see 1/2 of what I typed, makes it a pain to proofread.

And get home at 7.

We congratulate ourselves in Ireland for having created a dynamic economy over the last decade. But having done so, it seems that we forgot about creating an equitable society at the same time.