Ireland's ranking on an international corruption perception index has dropped five places from 18th last year to 23rd, out of 102 countries.
It lies well behind Finland, Denmark and New Zealand, seen as the least corrupt countries in the world, but is viewed as less corrupt than France (25th) and Italy (31st) on the index, drawn up annually by Transparency International, an anti-corruption non-governmental organisation.
Ireland's ranking is only just better than France and Italy's, and "that is not a good club to be in", according to Mr Frederik Galtung, head of research at Transparency International. Of the EU countries only Greece ranks lower, in 44th place, while Portugal ranks jointly with France in 25th place.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is a subjective reading, compiled from 15 polls gathered by nine institutions and focusing on corruption in the public sector. To qualify for the index, a country must rank on at least three different surveys.
Mr Galtung said, however, that the rating out of 10 rather than the ranking was what was important. Ireland had dropped from 18th place with a score of 7.5 to 23rd with a 6.9 score since last year. The least corrupt country, Finland, scored 9.7, and the UK 8.7, while Bangladesh rated only 1.2 and Nigeria 1.6.
Chile (17th), Hong Kong (14th) and Singapore (5th) lie well ahead of Ireland. Other key countries were the United States (16th) with 7.7, South Africa (36th) with 4.8 and Russia (71st) at 2.7.
The UK ranks 10th among the least corrupt countries, which include Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK.
Bangladesh was rated the most corrupt country, followed by Nigeria, Paraguay, Madagascar, Angola, Kenya and Indonesia.
Mr Galtung said the interesting development about Ireland was that the standard deviation had been narrowing. This refers to the deviation in views: some of those surveyed said standards were very bad whereas others said they were very good.
Eight surveys were used in determining Ireland's ranking. Those surveyed included business people, financial journalists and institutional investors.
Transparency International, which is funded by development agencies and private foundations, runs anti-corruption programmes in more than 70 countries. The Republic is the only Western European state in which it does not operate.
The chairman of Transparency International, Mr Peter Eigen, said corruption was holding countries in poverty despite pledges by leaders to crack down on it, and Western countries were as guilty as the developing world.
"Political elites and their cronies continue to take kickbacks at every opportunity," Mr Eigen said at the publication of the report in Berlin.
Seven of out 10 countries in the index scored less than five. "Politicians increasingly pay lip-service to the fight against corruption but they fail to act on the clear message: they must clamp down on corruption to break the vicious cycle of poverty and graft," Mr Eigen said.
"Britain and France are more corrupt than they ought to be. They encourage corruption abroad and it rebounds on them like a boomerang," he said, as companies which exploited graft abroad sometimes ended up using the same tactics at home.
Further information available at www.transparency.org
