Ireland is Europe's Most Charitable Nation

A study published today has revealed Ireland is Europe's most charitable nation and the third most giving country in the world.

The 'World Giving Index', said to be the largest study ever carried out into charitable behaviour across the globe by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), showed 72% of the Irish population had given money to charity, while 35% had given time and 60% said they had helped a stranger.

The “World Giving Index” used a Gallup survey on the charitable behaviour of people in 153 countries representing 95% of the world’s population. The survey asked people whether they had given money to charity in the last month and to rank how happy they are with life on a scale of one to ten.

For all countries CAF compared the strength of the relationship between giving with both a nation’s GDP and the happiness of its population, and found the link between happiness and giving is stronger than the link between wealth and giving.

Ireland scored 7.0 out of a possible 10 in "wellbeing", which was the eighth highest score in the world and a full point under the happiest nation, Australia.

Richard Harrison, CAF Director of Research, said: “Donating money to charity is something that is traditionally seen as being driven by how wealthy a person is. However, it is clear that happiness plays an important role in influencing whether people give.

“The findings suggest a positive cycle where one person gives to charity, the charity improves the happiness of the individuals they support and they in turn are more likely to give.”

Australia and New Zealand topped the index, while Malta was found to be the country with the largest percentage of the population (83%) giving money. The people of Turkmenistan are the most generous with their time with 61% having given time to charity and Liberia was top of the list for helping a stranger.

(DW/KMcA)