Some interesting figures here.

A survey has found that over three in 10 Irish adults (34%) describe themselves as "struggling" or being "streched" financially, a situation the survey found affects Irish women more than Irish men, The survey found that 40% of women in Ireland deem themselves as "struggling" or "stretched" when it comes to their finances, compared to 27% of men. Broken down, further, when asked the question, "how would you describe your current financial situation?" and provided with five possible responses, 12% of females and 7% of males surveyed answered "my finances are stretched - I regularly have to spend beyond my means".  Meanwhile, 28% of females and 20% of males answered "My finances are tight, I strictly adhere to a budget but struggle to spend within my means". The survey found that 41% of Irish adults view themselves as financially stable due to "prudent spending behaviour", while only 10% of adults in Ireland regard themselves as very comfortable financially. These were among the main findings of a survey of 1,000 adults from across the country, carried out by iReach and commissioned by protection specialists Royal London. The goal of the survey was to examine Irish people’s attitudes around family finances. Speaking about the findings, Joe Charles Head of Proposition at Royal London said:"We hear so much about our recovering economy, but based on our survey it’s clear that not everyone has felt the positive impact of this. "24% of people we surveyed found their finances to be ‘tight’, meaning that even though they adhere to a strict budget, they struggle to spend within their means. A further 10% said their finances were ‘stretched’ meaning they regularly find themselves spending beyond their means." Below you can see a graph, breaking down answers to the survey's question by age, gender and location: Recent figures from the CSO found that median weekly earnings in Ireland increased by 8.8% between 2011 and 2018.