Ireland’s Digital Quality of Life is getting better… honest
Raise up the flags, strike up the band, bring out the cake, pour out the drinks. We’ve done it. Fair play, Ireland. No one said it couldn’t be done. No one said it was impossible. And they were right. It was possible. We did do it.
It’s official, confirmed by Surfshark on 18 September 2023: Ireland has risen to a heady 23rd place in the global Digital Quality of Life Index out of 121 countries. And before the critics start sniping or pretending to be unimpressed, let me just point out that we were 24th last year! And the year before that. That’s slow but steady progress.
There may be some people who are unaware of what the Index is and how it is calculated. According to Surfshark, it is based on five core pillars: Internet quality, Internet affordability, e-security, e-infrastructure, and e-government.
So let’s work our way through them in turn.
First, Internet quality. The good news is that this is 16% higher than the global average but the slightly less good news is that Ireland ranks 36th in the world on this measure which, you might notice, is quite a bit worse than the country’s overall 23rd place. Sadly, it’s also worse than it was in 2022 (35th). Our high point was 2020 when Ireland ranked 30th.
Fair enough, you might say, but maybe the slight drop in quality might be reflected in lower costs. You would, unfortunately, be wrong. The disappointing news is that Ireland’s Internet is now worse in terms of affordability than it has been in the past four years. According to Surfshark, people in Ireland have to work one hour and 23 minutes a month to afford fixed broadband internet.
Weirdly, we ranked highest for Internet affordability (24th) in the same year – 2021 – that we had our best placing for Internet quality. That’s interesting, don’t you think? It seems almost counter-intuitive to be in the situation where the best ranking for Ireland’s Internet service was when it was the most affordable.
Similarly, it might give people pause for thought that Ireland has dropped a very substantial 20 places in Internet affordability and quality has fallen six places over that two-year period.
It’s not necessarily that Ireland’s Internet has got worse. In fact, fixed Internet speed has improved by 19% and mobile speed by 23%. But the fact our quality has dropped slightly suggests that those improvements are barely keeping pace with the countries around us in the rankings.
It’s not very encouraging to see Ireland has declined in terms of e-infrastructure (down from 18th place last year to 22nd) and e-government (down from 23rd in 2022 to 26th).
In fact, when you consider that Ireland has lost ground in four of the five categories, it’s difficult to grasp quite how it managed to rise in the overall Index. Mind you, it did achieve a very significant improvement in e-security, rising from 25th to 20th. That’s not quite our best result however. Ireland was 18th for e-security in 2020.
One of the most notable features of the Index is that European countries perform so well. The fact Ireland is 23rd overall in the world but only 17th out of 38 European countries shows just how well they did overall with nine of the top ten spots occupied by European nations, the exception being Singapore at 10.
Overall, though, you have to say 23rd is a good result. Like I said, slow but steady progress. Could Ireland make it to 22nd next year, or even higher? No one’s saying it can’t be done. I’m not saying anyone should book the band for next year just yet but it can’t hurt to dream.
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