Data points to economy on strong growth path

Ireland is a small and very open economy.

As I highlighted in this column last year, its large external trade, in particular, means that Irish data can quite often give confusing signals about the state of the economy.

The National Accounts data for 2013 published by the CSO last week is a very good example. Its show that, on a GDP basis, the economy contracted by 0.3% last year, following growth of just 0.2% in 2012.