Social protection encompasses all interventions from public or private bodies intended to relieve households and individuals of the burden of a defined set of risks or needs, provided that there is neither a simultaneous reciprocal nor an individual arrangement involved. The data are derived from the annual ESSPROS data transmission programme to Eurostat (see What is ESSPROS? section below).
Expenditure on social protection includes: (i) social benefits, which consist of transfers, in cash or in kind, to households and individuals to relieve them of the burden of these risks or needs; (ii) administration costs, which represent the costs charged to the social protection scheme for its management and administration; and (iii) other expenditure, which consists of miscellaneous expenditure by social protection schemes (payment of property income and other).
Social protection benefits granted within the framework of social protection can take many forms; however, in ESSPROS, they are limited to:
Only direct transfers to households and individuals are included; benefits via the fiscal system are excluded. Social benefits are paid to households by social security funds, other government units, non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH), employers administering unfunded social insurance schemes, insurance enterprises or other institutional units administering privately funded social insurance schemes. Benefits are classified according to eight social protection functions (which represent a set of risks or needs):
The statistical unit in the ESSPROS is called social protection scheme which is used to organise the compilation of data nationally. The ESSPROS manual defines it as follows:
“A social protection scheme is a distinct body of rules, supported by one or more institutional units, governing the provision of social protection benefits and their financing.
This definition calls for further clarification:
Data in Ireland are compiled across seven schemes which reflects the above definition and data sources in Ireland. The table below presents a summary of the data sources for these schemes:
Scheme Name | Data Source / Compilation |
Housing Scheme | National Accounts & Government Finance Statistics: Estimates of housing output of Local Government Sector, expenditure on Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), and Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) |
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Private Occupational Pensions Scheme | National Accounts and Financial Accounts estimates on pensions (including Supplementary Table on accrued-to-date pension entitlements in social insurance - Table 29). |
Dept. Social Protection Voted Expenditure | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform reported expenditure via the Revised Estimates Volume and Appropriation Accounts, mainly related to DSP voted expenditure. It includes expenditure on accommodation for those seeking temporary protection under Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/382 of 4 March 2022 establishing the existence of a mass influx of displaced persons from Ukraine within the meaning of Article 5 of Directive 2001/55/EC, and having the effect of introducing temporary protection. This expenditure is funded via the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. |
Public Health | System of Health Accounts (SHA) data: classifications in SHA are mapped to ESSPROS. Receipts are sourced from Health Service Executive's annual financial statement |
Government Employee Occupational Benefits | National Accounts & Government Finance Statistics: estimates of pensions paid, paid sick leave, and paid maternity/paternity leave. |
Social Insurance Fund | Department of Public Expenditure and Reform reported expenditure via the Revised Estimates Volume, Appropriation Accounts, and Comptroller and Auditor General Annual Financial Statements |
Child Protection | Annual Financial Statements of the Child and Family Agency (Túsla) and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform reported expenditure via the Revised Estimates Volume and Appropriation Accounts. |
In the absence of a specific fund, receipts for most schemes are equal to expenditure as the main source of financing is general government revenue. In these cases ’scheme beneficiaries‘ are not contributing directly into a fund. However, the Private Occupational Pensions Scheme and the Social Insurance Fund do have contributions from scheme members which form the main source of income for these schemes. In the case of the Social Insurance Fund if expenditure exceeds receipts the shortfall is made up by a Government subvention.
Administrative costs refer to the costs charged to a scheme for management and administration thereof. They include outgoings on registration of beneficiaries, collection of contributions, administration of benefits, inspection, reinsurance, financial management, and general overheads.
The ESSPROS manual (paragraph 102C (IV)) excludes from administrative costs the compensation of public administration employees responsible for general supervision and social policy in a broad sense. As these employees are not directly and expressly involved in running social protection schemes, their salaries are not recorded in the ESSPROS.
And paragraph 102D states:
“For simplicity, administration costs are not recorded when they form an inseparable part of internal running costs (intermediate consumption) of the institutional unit which runs the scheme. This will apply to all unfunded employer's schemes, and possibly to certain public assistance and funded employers' schemes. However, estimates of the administration costs involved may be provided in additional tables.”
For this reason, administrative costs are excluded from the Housing Scheme, Public Health Scheme, Government Employee Occupational Benefits Scheme, and Child Protection Scheme. Administrative costs are explicitly published by the Department of Social Protection in relation to the schemes it operates.
ESSPROS is short for 'European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics'. ESSPROS is a common framework which enables international comparison of the administrative national data on social protection. It provides a coherent comparison between European member states of social benefits provided to households and its financing.
The ESSPROS data collection consists of a core system and specific modules. The core system provides annual data on social protection receipts and expenditure by schemes.
More information on the ESSPROS transmission programme are available on the Eurostat website, Eurostat database, and the Eurostat ESSPROS metadata location.
The GDP and GNI* figures used in this publication are those published in the Annual National Accounts published on 12 July 2024.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of the total economic activity in the country. It represents total expenditure on the output of goods and services in the country. While all of the goods and services flowing through Ireland are included in GDP estimates the flows in and out of the country leave much less in the domestic economy than appears in GDP. In Ireland's National Accounts, the CSO has developed indicators that take out the distorting effects of globalisation. These indicators include Modified Total Domestic Demand and Modified Gross National Income (GNI*).
GNI* is an indicator designed specifically to measure the size of the Irish economy excluding globalisation effects. Modified GNI is largely made up of Compensation of Employees paid here to workers, Gross Operating Surplus and Gross Mixed Income of Irish-owned enterprises, and Taxes received by the Government. All of these are available for spending and investment by domestic sectors, which makes GNI* a good indicator of the domestic economy and a better estimate of available resources for expenditure on goods and services such as social protection. In particular, using GNI* as a denominator can be more informative when comparing spending with other countries.