Beware of parties bearing gifts at election time

As we approach the end of another year, it is safe to say that it has been a very good one from an economic perspective, or at least in comparison to anything we have seen since 2007.

This week, the CSO released the official growth numbers for the third quarter of the year.

Prior to the publication of the quarterly national accounts for the three-month period to the end of September, we had a pretty comprehensive picture of economic activity based on individual data releases, but the national accounts data bring it all together and fill in the gaps that were still remaining.