A new survey by Corporate Reputations and the Reputation Institute has found that Ireland has been ranked the 15th most reputable country in a list of fifty.

TheJournal.ie reports on the bit of good news for the economically struggling Ireland. The survey was taken by 36,000 people from the G8 countries - Canada, Germany, Italy, UK, Japan, France, the US and Russia.

In order to retrieve data, respondents are asked to rate each country on scales from zero to 100 about trust, esteem, admiration and good feeling; the average provides the final scoring basis. Ireland’s score improved by five points this year.

In the three previous surveys, Ireland had been on a steady decline, dropping from 11th in 2009, to 14th in 2010 and 17th in 2011.

Now, Ireland has taken a step in the right direction with survey data landing the Republic in 15th.
Taking the top spots on the survey were Canada in first, Australia in second and Sweden in third.

The UK just inched by Ireland to land in the 14th spot. Ireland did beat out America, which was ranked as 23rd, just making the top half. Iraq was at the bottom of the pack in 50th place of the 50 surveyed.

Niamh Boyle, the managing director of Corporate Reputations, told The Journal that the results are significant for Ireland: “The main take is that the trend has started to reverse, because our reputation has really plunged over the last number of years.

“There is an awful lot said about Ireland’s reputation from within, but there isn’t much about what the G8 countries think of us.”

Boyle went on to say that she believes Ireland’s view of itself as compared to the global perception of the country can differ. “You hear a lot about the rest of the world, and how they feel about Ireland as a contributor to global culture, by Irish politicians particularly. Whereas we would score ourselves highly in this regard, the G8 countries don’t.”

Ireland, however, is understood to be a beautiful country, one that affords itself a nice lifestyle, by those who participated in the survey.

This year’s survey bumped Ireland up by two spots, to which Boyle said a “five percent increase on reputation score brings, on average, a 12 per cent increase in tourism receipts and a seven per cent increase in foreign direct investment.”