Ireland invests €830bn abroad

IRELAND Inc has €830 billion invested in the rest of the world — a massive 7.2 times the national income or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of €115.5bn.

The Central Statistics Office yesterday published a new series of statistics under the heading International Investment Position (IIP), which show Ireland Inc assets stock of €829.717bn is €12.03bn below our liabilities stock with the rest of the world of €841.82bn, at the end of 2001.

However, the figures are skewed by the huge financial services business of the International Financial Service Centre (IFSC) in Dublin.