Ireland has the highest expenditure rate on unemployment in the EU, according to the European Commission's statistics agency Eurostat. It found Ireland spends twice the European average on unemployment costs.
The Department of Social Protection said the figures reflected the complexity of unemployment-related expenditure and not just jobseekers' allowance payments.
Eurostat said government spending on unemployment was highest in Ireland at 7.6 per cent of total expenditure in 2014, more than double the EU average of 3.2 per cent.
The next highest proportion was in Spain (6.7 per cent), then Denmark (5.9 per cent) and followed by Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, all at 4.3 per cent.
The department said the figures also reflected the differences in the rates of unemployment between member states.
“For example in Germany and the Netherlands, two of the countries quoted, the average unemployment rate for 2014 was circa 5 per cent and 7.4 per cent respectively compared to circa 11.3 per cent for Ireland. For the EU overall, the average rate for 2014 was circa 10 per cent,” it said.
It also highlighted the relative size of the labour force “as unemployment rates are expressed as a percentage of the working age population that is available for work”.
In this respect, 87 per cent of the Irish population is under 65 years, while the EU average is 81 per cent. In Germany, the figure is 79 per cent.
“Conversely despite having comparatively high pension payment rates our spend on pension payments, as a percentage of total expenditure, is below the EU average as is overall social protection expenditure at 38.6 per cent compared to the EU average of 40.2 per cent.”The Eurostat figures showed Ireland’s spend on health as a percentage of government expenditure is, at 17.4 per cent, above the EU average of 14.8 per cent, and behind only the Netherlands at 17.7 per cent.
