Ireland ranks 21 out of 177 countries on ‘corruption’ index

Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan deemed most corrupt nations

Denmark and New Zealand were found to be the least corrupt on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index for 2013. Image: Transparency International

Ireland is ranked number 21 out of 177 countries named on the annual ‘corruption’ index published by Transparency International, up from a ranking of 25 last year.

The organisation’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2013 scores countries and territories on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

More than two thirds of the 177 countries in the 2013 index score below 50. Ireland had a rating this year of 72, slightly worse than last year’s rating of 69. The country’s position at 21 on the index places it just below Uruguay and above the Bahamas and Chile.