Increasingly, for highly globalised countries such as Ireland, it is important to account for globalisation effects in data. Redomiciled PLCs have, as previously illustrated, significant impacts in some of our statistical outputs. In order to account for these impacts, it is important to separate those figures which are influenced by Redomiciled PLCs and illustrate which data are reflective of firms that are native to Ireland i.e. those firms which have originated here.
While in CSO publications, we refer to these firms as Redomiciled PLCs, international organisations have termed the concept “corporate inversion”. The OECD’s BMD4 manual defines a corporate inversion as “corporate restructuring of a transnational enterprise group such that the original parent company in one economy becomes a subsidiary of the new parent in another economy. In addition, ownership of a group of enterprises may be shifted to the new parent company.”
Beginning in 2008, in reaction to proposed changes to corporate tax rates in the United Kingdom and the United States, a number of multinational corporations relocated their group headquarters to Ireland. Since that year, there have been additional firms that have relocated, while some opted to return.
| Turnover | Employment | |
| All Foreign Affiliates | 255.686 | 1168.733 |
| Foreign Affiliates of Redomiciled PLCs | 128.506073753 | 774.64 |
| Foreign Affiliates for Native Irish Firms | 127.179926247 | 394.093 |
Source Publications: Business Register OFATS Publication
Figure 4.1 shows the main OFATS outputs from the business register shown by which data relates to the Redomiciled PLCs and which relates to native Irish firms. As seen, these Redomiciled PLCs have had a significant effect on our foreign affiliate statistics. As most of their operations are abroad, they have significant employment outside of Ireland. The graph also shows approximately 394 thousand persons affiliated with native Irish firms abroad. This data was sourced from the 2019 CSO Business Register OFATS Survey.
| Employment | |
| United Kingdom | 96.416 |
| United States | 87.473 |
| Mexico | 31.463 |
| Germany | 20 |
| France | 14.899 |
| Poland | 13.888 |
| Spain | 10.29 |
| Netherlands | 10.04 |
| Canada | 9.56 |
| Brazil | 8.033 |
Figure 4.2 provides a breakdown of the persons affiliated with native Irish firm investment abroad. By and large, the two biggest countries for Irish investment associated employment abroad are the United Kingdom and the United States.
| Net Income of Redomiciled PLCs | |
| 2012 | 6.680310472 |
| 2013 | 6.424153827 |
| 2014 | 6.727686455 |
| 2015 | 4.370139348 |
| 2016 | 5.453139819 |
| 2017 | 4.294186894 |
| 2018 | 4.912479245 |
| 2019 | 4.861797101 |
| 2020 | 4.506411296 |
In 2020, the net income of redomiciled PLCs was €4.5bn. Figure 4.3 shows the net income of redomiciled PLCs in the balance of payments primary income figures. Users often refer to primary income as the repatriated profits of multinationals based in Ireland.
| Total Net Income | Net Income minus Redomiciled PLC's | |
| 2012 | -33.938648006 | -40.618958478 |
| 2013 | -28.069566721 | -34.493720548 |
| 2014 | -30.341472347 | -37.069158802 |
| 2015 | -60.784510562 | -65.15464991 |
| 2016 | -49.912550441 | -55.36569026 |
| 2017 | -61.063440866 | -65.35762776 |
| 2018 | -73.4410623 | -75.4590623 |
| 2019 | -79.83790166 | -81.85690166 |
| 2020 | -89.16097648 | -91.18097648 |
Figure 4.4 shows the effects of the Redomiciled PLCs on the overall net income for Ireland’s international accounts. The positive effect reduces the deficit of income that Ireland has experienced at a decreasing rate over the course of the period shown.
| Total | Redomiciled PLC's | |
| 2012 | 1917.02908461 | 123.10129061 |
| 2013 | 1933.65591361 | 192.08583401 |
| 2014 | 2364.50763223 | 297.53128426 |
| 2015 | 2798.42764136 | 446.04336134 |
| 2016 | 2909.50036556 | 424.71889819 |
| 2017 | 3141.6957543 | 388.20074358 |
| 2018 | 3172.2906709 | 393.30634963 |
| 2019 | 3974.9757582 | 477.25037216 |
| 2020 | 4274.6080488 | 439.7769745 |
As none of the shareholders own more than 10% of the equity in these companies, their liabilities are classified in the IIP as ‘portfolio investment – equity’. Proportionally, they have a smaller impact on this sub-heading as portfolio investment liabilities are dominated by investment funds. Redomiciled PLCs data, compared to Ireland's total portfolio investment liability, are shown in Figure 4.5.
On Figure 4.5 the total portfolio investment positions for 2014 have been corrected after 11am on 27 June 2022.
| Redomiciled PLC's | |
| 2012 | 10.398662 |
| 2013 | 152.047285 |
| 2014 | 177.823498 |
| 2015 | 286.920447 |
| 2016 | 289.477188 |
| 2017 | 206.9185 |
| 2018 | 106.427928 |
| 2019 | 235.436195 |
| 2020 | 230.72317 |
Figure 4.6 shows the tangible fixed assets of the Redomiciled PLCs in millions of euro. The reason for the large variation in these fixed assets is the dynamic nature of the reporting on these companies. A firm may be headquartered in Ireland one year and the next it may leave; in which case, its fixed assets would no longer be considered Irish owned for statistical purposes and show up in this graph. In 2020, the Redomiciled PLCs held just over €200 million in tangible fixed assets domestically.
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