Ireland and the EU at 50

Ireland's GDP 1975-2022

Ireland's share of the EU27 population was higher than Ireland's GDP share in 1975 (0.8% versus 0.6%). Ireland's GDP share first exceeded Ireland's population share in 1996. By 2022, Ireland's population share had grown to 1.1%. Ireland's GDP share grew at a far greater pace, rising to 3.2% of the EU27 total in 2022 or almost three times Ireland's population share.

Ireland's GDP per capita gradually converged with EU averages over the first 20 years of EU membership. Since accession to the Single European Market in the early 1990s and the advent of globalisation, Ireland's GDP per capita grew significantly over the decade of the 1990s and into the early 2000s. After the period of economic downturn in the late 2000s and early 2010s, GDP per capita grew most rapidly during the second half of the 2010s decade. Ireland's GDP per capita recorded in the year 2022 was 290.2% of the equivalent EU per capita value. This represents the peak value since our membership of the EU in 1973. 

The following graph shows the Labour Share (Compensation of Employees) as a percentage of total GDP from 1973 to 2022.

Compensation of employees is defined as the total renumeration in cash or in benefit in kind for work done. Compensation of employees is made up of wages and salaries and employers’ social contribution.

Labour Share as a percentage of total GDP steadily declined until 2003. There were some increases in Labour Share for several years from 2003 to 2009 due to larger growth in Compensation of Employees compared with GDP. Since 2010, the Labour Share has been steadily decreasing.

Main Economic Aggregates GDP, GNP, GNI 1973 - 2022 (Five-Yearly Intervals)

The rapid growth in the economy since 1973 is shown by the main economic aggregates, GDP, GNP, and GNI. GDP in real terms in the year 2022 was more than 10 times the 1973 value while GNP and GNI were more than six times their respective 1973 levels.

In Ireland, GDP is now considerably in excess of GNP and GNI because of the influence of the profits of foreign direct investment Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). As an indicator of domestic economic well-being, GNP and GNI are more useful indicators (the Modified GNI or GNI* headline economic variable developed in 2016 and 2017 is unavailable for the years pre-1995). Strong increases have taken place in recent years with GNP and GNI almost doubling since 2008, while both measures have increased by more than 50% in the period between 2015 and 2022. Increasing exports, higher personal consumption, and a rapid increase in investment in the past seven years since 2015 have contributed to increased economic activity, notwithstanding the difficulties experienced in the COVID-19 pandemic period that began in early 2020.

Main Economic Aggregates GDP, GNP, GNI per Capita

The table shows the ratio of Ireland’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, Gross National Product (GNP) per capita and Gross National Income (GNI) per capita for selected years between 1973 and 2022. Ireland’s per capita output grew initially following membership of the then European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union, but this growth lost momentum between the late 1970s and the late 1980s. The mid-90s until the turn of the millennium saw rapid advancements in growth in the per capita measures. The early 2000s saw a return to more modest growth in these measures with significant contractions being experienced in the late 2000s, particularly in 2008 and 2009, resulting from the economic downturn of the time. A return to significant expansion in per person growth occurred from 2014 onwards, with the years from 2015 to 2021, the year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, recording notable increases. Overall, in 2022, at levels approaching €66,000, GNP and GNI per capita are almost four times the level that were posted in 1973. 

1973 - 2022 GVA by NACE

This chart displays the changing composition of our economy, using Gross Value Added (GVA) at factor cost. We can see that the large scale of the Service sector is an established feature, with Services making up half the economy in the early 1970s. The well-known 2015 'level shift' in the National Accounts reversed a long-standing trend in the data by increasing the proportion of the economy due to Industry while reducing the Services proportion.

Agriculture = NACE 01-03, Industry = NACE 05-43, Services = NACE 45-98. Source: CSO

Openness of Trade Index

Trade Openness is defined at Total Exports plus Total Imports taken as a percentage of GDP. The average index value for Ireland over the time span of EU membership between 1973 and 2022 has been 147.9. The minimum value recorded over the period was 75.7 in 1973, the peak value was in 2019, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, at 252.5 with the 2022 estimated value being 234.3. According to World Bank data, Ireland ranked fifth in terms of Trade Openness in the year 2022 of 133 countries for which data on a comparable basis were available. An interpretation of the openness index is, the higher the index, the larger the influence of international trade on the domestic economic activity of a country and also the more developed and integrated that country's economy is within the world economy. World Trade as a percentage of World GDP in year 2021, the most recent year for which data are available, was 57% (Source: World Bank).

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