Mr. Juan Mendéndez-Valdés:

I thank the Chairman, Senators and Deputies. I will start by expressing our gratitude for inviting Eurofound to present some of our priorities and activities, particularly given the fact that we are the only European Union agency that was established in Ireland.

As members may know, Eurofound is the short name for the much longer and nicer title of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. This name reflects one of the key objectives, if not the key one, of the European Union project. We provide knowledge, information and evidence that is likely to assist in the development of social and work-related policies that can lead to the improvement of the quality of life and work in Europe. We work in a number of areas, those being, the labour market, unemployment policy, working conditions, industrial relations and social policies. These are our core areas of expertise in which we focus our research and communication activities.

We have compiled a word cloud containing a number of words that have been key to debates in the European Parliament. I am sure that discussions on employment are also central to debates in the Houses of the Oireachtas. These words are at the heart of Eurofound's research activities. We wish to present a number of our findings of comparative information to highlight some of the data as they relate to Ireland so that members might have a flavour of the kind of information that we can provide and that would support members in their work as policy makers.

I will start with a basic figure on life satisfaction. Members are probably more than aware that they are living in a country where people are reasonably satisfied, certainly more so than the European average of 7.1 on a scale of one to ten. Like my country of Spain, Ireland is above the average, but we are both below the level of the Nordic countries, which have the highest levels. For example, Denmark has a level of 8.4.

A number of elements are relevant for life satisfaction. One is satisfaction with family life, which is pertinent for Irish citizens. Ireland ranks close to the top of the comparative information with 8.4, whereas the EU average is 8.2. If I understand the situation correctly, this point is highlighted by the number of debates the Houses have on supporting families, welfare assistance and public services. We know from our research, particularly our analysis of the European quality of life survey, that the perception of the quality of public services has a stronger impact on trust in governments than the perception of economic performance does. Members have mentioned issues of disengagement and trust. These are matters that we explore through our quality of life surveys. Members can see a screenshot of our survey mapping tool. They can go to our website and, question by question, check how Ireland compares with other countries on different aspects. In terms of trust in government, for example, our last survey two years ago showed the European average to be 4 whereas Ireland's rating was slightly below that and significantly below that of the top country, which had a rating of 6.9.

I will show the committee three different public services in which Irish citizens' perceptions were compared with those of citizens of other European countries. In terms of child care, the European average is 6.2. Ireland is close to this at 6. In the perception of the quality of health services, Ireland's rating of 4.9 is below the European average of 6.3. However, Ireland rates above the European Union average in terms of the perceived quality of the education system.

The European average is 6.3 while Ireland’s is 6.8, the same as the United Kingdom.

Employment is also at the centre of our research. We examined structural changes in the labour market in Europe and in individual member states during the recession, taking into account the kind of jobs created or destroyed, whether wages are high or low, job quality and educational attainment of jobholders. More than 5 million jobs were lost in the recession between 2008 and 2010. These were concentrated in the middle and low-paid sectors, a pattern followed in Ireland. Since 2011, Ireland has returned to job creation but most of them are middle and low-paid jobs.

How do wages in Ireland compare with those in other member states? During the recession, wages in Europe dropped but Ireland is still among those with higher level salaries. Compared with others in Europe, Ireland has the seventh highest wage distribution. If this was not adjusted to take into account the cost of living, Ireland would have the fourth highest.