Republic Beats Northern Ireland For Life Expectancy And Households Are £3,300 Better Off

Belfast Telegraph ✒ Households in the Republic have €3,800 (£3,300) more disposable income annually than those in Northern Ireland, new research shows.

Lauren Harte

This equates to a 12% gap after accounting for price differences in both areas. Life expectancy is also now 1.4 years longer in the south, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

The Sunday Times reports that, across almost all indicators, standards of living were better in the Republic than in Northern Ireland. Despite a perception that the NHS is superior to the Republic's HSE (Health Service Executive), researchers found little difference between the health services on either side of the border, with the south having more doctors in relation to its population size.

Co-author on the study, Adele Bergin, expressed surprise at this finding and said she believed it was caused by regional disparities across the NHS.:

Within the UK, the NHS in Northern Ireland is quite a poor performer. A person in Northern Ireland is at least 40 times as likely as someone in Wales to wait more than a year for care — and Wales is otherwise the worst performer in the UK.

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