Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In terms of the public sector spend, I frequently read different takes on what we actually spend and very peculiar analyses and comparisons being made. A very interesting article published by Seamus Coffey, the UCC economist, indicates that across all countries health, education and social protection for families and working-age population represent the biggest chunk of expenditure normally. In 2013 the average expenditure across those three areas in the 28 countries of the EU was the equivalent of 19.7% of GDP. In Ireland we spent 22.8% of GDP, which ranked Ireland as the seventh highest spending EU country on health, education and social protection.

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