Black market and creative accounting

Seemingly the Government, due to an EU regulation, is obliged to include the ‘black market’ in the economic figures for the country. Your issue of Friday last has the CSO calculating a figure of €1.258bn for activities relating to sex and drug transactions. However, the CSO refuses to explain how they came by this figure.

Perhaps it was instructed by our Minister for Finance that this figure would fit in nicely with his GDP calculations for the year. Perhaps the CSO’s precise figure is known because the sex and drug trades are really government-sponsored industries?

I fail to understand why it’s just sex and drug earnings are highlighted from within the ‘black market’ industry. Can the CSO not supply figures for all of the other untaxed ‘black market’ activities? The following come to mind: tobacco smuggling, fuel laundering, church gate collections, mass card donations, sports club draws, brown envelopes, tradesmen who deal in cash only and all the other myriad cash deals that go on in our sad, sad Republic.