Dr. Adele Bergin:

I thank the Deputy for her question. One of the reasons we homed in on the life expectancy measure in our work comparing living standards is that it takes you away from the economic measures that are typically used, such as GDP per capitaand so on. A whole range of things go into determining life expectancy in a region. Factors including economic growth, people's incomes, access to healthcare and educational attainment combine to give life expectancy in a region. One of the things we were particularly struck by is that, going back 20 years, life expectancy in Northern Ireland was close to or above that in the Republic. We have seen life expectancy continue to increase in the South and a gap has emerged. We cannot say for sure what is driving it. All of the factors we have mentioned, from healthcare to income and everything else, combine to give us that. We do not have data for Northern Ireland for more recent years. The data the Deputy has referred to are for 2017.

The other day, I was looking at some of the statistics on life expectancy for Ireland and the UK contained in OECD data covering the first part of the pandemic and one of the things we have seen between 2019 and 2020 is that life expectancy in Ireland fell by 0.2 years. That is a fall, which is not a great thing to see, but life expectancy in the UK fell by a year between 2019 and 2020. That is what the most recent data show, which illustrates the stark impact of the pandemic. However, I digress.

We do not have the same data for Northern Ireland for recent years. They are just not available. One of the reasons we really like this life expectancy measure is that it tells us something about everything and the cumulative difference in living standards and welfare between the two jurisdictions. When we see that gap, we know it reflects an overall gap in living standards, opportunity and all of that kind of thing.