the best place to be?
According to a survey undertaken by The Economist, Ireland is the best place to live in the world. This is based on a range of “quality of life” factors including health, climate, income and gender equality.
When I first heard this on a radio news bulletin as I made my way into work on a miserable wet morning in a slow overcrowded bus, my first thought was that I could not agree more! 
Public transport must not have been a factor and the state of the health service and gender equality clearly were not considered critical!
Ah but in fairness I’ve never lived anywhere else and I’m always moaning about something! It is kind of nice to think that little old Ireland is the loveliest place to live 
November 22nd, 2004 at 6:18 pm
WRT to gender equality thing, although it’s regrettable that full equality hasn’t yet been achieved, it was a comparative study and (according to the article you linked to), we’re only behind Luxembourg and Norway in that regard (and we surely have a better climate than Norway!).
We’re a fair bit ahead of France and *way* ahead of the UK and Germany.
November 28th, 2004 at 8:47 am
yeah i know i know , it’s just my hobby horse!
also, while the survey i linked to highlighted income, there are of course many other components of gender equality and i haven’t researched it but it’s a sad day if ireland comes out favourably in EU studies of proportion of women in management positions or childcare facilities and the like!
my first instinct when i heard ireland was the best place to live was to think of what’s wrong with it, without considering that perhaps it could be the best of a bad lot
and apologies for the delay in approving this comment, it got lost in the slew of spam for a while!