IRELAND has plummeted 14 places in the world economic freedom league, as the size of government’s role in the economy grows following the effective privatisation of much of the banking sector.

ECONOMIC freedom in Ireland is on the decline the Economic Freedom of the World 2003 report states and it is getting worse according to the Irish contributors to the study.

Ireland is the seventh most "economically free" nation in the world, according to the latest Economic Freedom of the World Report.