
Irish Economy grew by 26.3% in 2015 - s_dev
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/economy-grows-by-26-3-in-2015-says-cso-1.2719047
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s_dev
The article does a pretty good job of explaining how they reached that figure.
Massive financial manoeuvres involved in aircraft leasing industry. On a
global level Ireland is the place for aircraft leasing.

GDP and GNP are similar for most countries but Ireland is a small open and
agile economy with a huge presence of foreign multinationals. Profits of these
companies are often declared in Ireland but repatriated back to their host
countries. Hence the disparity between the two figures.

Ireland also entered a harsh recession from 2008 to 2014 so an element here is
also simply making up for lost ground.

This comes at a time when Ireland is bracing itself for Brexit. Ireland is
massive trading partner of the UK. Ireland buys a similar amount from the UK
as France for example.

The strategy seems twofold - get the EU to empathise with Ireland so that the
UK doesn't have to got though a hard exit and introduce a hard border. While
also trying to rob all the companies looking to relocate to an EU location
from London.

For me whats interesting so much value being added to the Irish economy with
relatively little actually coming from construction. Something Ireland was
little too dependant on.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "so that the UK doesn't have to got though a hard exit and introduce a hard
border"

I don't see anyway around the hard border. If border EU countries are required
to protect their border as I've been lead to believe then Ireland now has to
do that unless UK excepts freedom of movement.

~~~
s_dev
Rumour has it the UK will likely go for EEA membership after invoking article
50. This isn't foregone conclusion but a possibility and some would say likely
outcome.

UK will have to accept EU migration and contribute to EU purse but doesn't
have a seat at the table making the whole referendum a fruitless pursuit that
cost the UK political clout.

Conversely the Germans may see Brexit as a threat to the EU (particularly if
the UK does well outside the EU) and may veto the UK joining the EEA. The UK
performing poorly outside the EU would act as a disincentive to other members
who may be weighing up leaving.

Another alternative to the hard border between N.Ireland and Ireland is a hard
border between N.Ireland and the rest of the UK. Though some saying having to
use a passport to travel within your own country defeats the purpose of the
country.

~~~
threeseed
I personally doubt that the UK will go for EEA membership.

The Leave campaign made it crystal clear their rationale and the most notable
were not allowing EU immigration and not giving money to the EU. For the Tory
government to ignore the mandate would be politically catastrophic and would
result in the same problems from the right e.g UKIP that caused this whole
mess to begin with.

It seems more likely that there will be a whole raft of specific agreements
over the coming decades that will facilitate a more constructive EU-UK
relationship.

~~~
celticninja
The leave campaign made nothing clear and reneged immediately on the promises
it had made. Half of them said we would remain in the single market and keep
freedom of movement and others said we wouldn't have either. There were no
consistent demands from leave. Even leave voters who were interviewed
afterwards said they wanted to limit the movement of people from Syria and
Afghanistan not the movement of people from Europe, showing not only did they
not understand what they voted for their desired outcome was never possible
anyway.

None of the leave campaign are in a position of power so what they wanted,
whatever it was, is not an issue.

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markokrajnc
And it may grow even more when some/many US subsidiaries in UK will move to
Ireland after Brexit (english speaking country in EU is attracting many US
companies)...

~~~
garrettheaver
Ireland can definitely capitalise on this calamity and there is no doubting
how good the IDA are at what they do. What could make it a major success story
is if the Dept of Finance get their act together and finally listen to what
the investment community has been telling them for years re competitiveness.

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ferdinandvwyk
As the article hinted, there's a lot to consider when reaching the headline
figure. Here's the associated grain of salt:
[http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/analysis-crazy-
gr...](http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/analysis-crazy-growth-
figures-bear-scant-relationship-to-reality-1.2719106)

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padobson
Seeing a growth number like 26.3% is like seeing a sprinter run the 100m in
9.43s. At first you're impressed, and then you immediately wonder what PEDs
they're taking.

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GnarlyWhale
Does anyone have an idea of how this may impacting the job market for
Developers/Engineers? I've been interested in potentially moving to Ireland
for some time, but have held off because it was my understanding that work was
much harder to come by (vs. North American standards).

~~~
s_dev
I help mod a sub reddit called /r/DevelEire for Irish software developers.
Might be a good place to check out if you're seriously considering it.

1\. A fair number of companies to relocate to Dublin post Brexit.

2\. Large indigenous growth coming from Irish startups. Slowly the scene has
been building and maturing for years.

3\. You'll have to take a 50% wage cut if you come to Ireland. American
software developers are paid approx 2x their Irish counterparts.

~~~
talideon
OTOH, even Dublin is vastly cheaper than SV, with an excellent quality of
life.

~~~
dkersten
Yes, lower salary but lower cost of living. Dublin is expensive by Irish
standards, but its not SV-expensive. If you work somewhere that doesn't
require you to live in Dublin or Cork, then you can cut costs drastically (I
live in the midlands in a 3 bedroom house and it costs me about 60% of a one-
bed apartment in Dublin).

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bennalle
Check out Paul Krugman's latest input on these numbers. In his recent tweet he
points out that a lot of this growth is from technology companies transferring
their IP assets or patents to Ireland. Which shouldn't be added to GDP.

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british_india
Tax evasion by American Tech companies.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
If it was that much of a problem for America they could change their rules.

~~~
british_india
If Ireland wishes to make themselves a tax haven, then the US has very little
influence over that.

But for anyone to claim that Ireland would experience this sort of growth
without being the go-to tax avoidance location for the likes of Google, Apple,
Facebook and fill in the blank--is ridiculous on its face. Through the
phenomenon of "income stripping" these tech companies essentially gift their
IP to their Irish subsidiaries and then the subsidiary charges the parent
company to use that IP, thereby stripping the parent company's earnings from
the US--where the companies are actually located--to these tax havens.

In case you've been living under a rock you would know that Facebook has been
fighting a lawsuit from the US treasury since 2010 over this exact situation.

