Half-year report card fair but long road ahead

As we pass the mid-point of another year, it is worth taking stock and assessing where the Irish economy now finds itself.

While we don’t yet have complete data for the first half, it is possible to build up a picture of what is going on.

The patterns we saw emerge in 2011 are being sustained this year. In 2011, real GDP expanded by 0.7%. but when the impact of multinational profit repatriations is factored in, the more meaningful measure of economic activity on the ground, namely GNP, contracted by 2.5%.