Ireland's FDI over-dependence and surging population

In the first two decades of the current century, the populations of the Netherlands and Denmark grew by 8 and 9% respectively; Sweden's population grew 14% and Switzerland's expanded 23%. The Irish population grew by 29%.

The peak year in modern times for immigration to Sweden was 2015 (Swedish migration laws changed in 2016) and the peak in Switzerland was 2008.

In the last decade, the Irish population grew by about 450,000 but in 6 of the 10 years, housing completions were in single-digit thousands following the collapse of the Irish construction industry from 2009.

Irish house size, climate change and living space per person - Part 2

John Hinde (1916-1997), an Englishman who developed a postcard business in Ireland from 1956, published the 1960s image of children collecting turf (peat) from a bog in Connemara, Co Galway. This image of Rural Ireland has been replaced in the past 50 years by the so-called one-off large detached houses owned by urbanites. There are over 460,000 of these houses in 2021 contributing to air and groundwater pollution while getting public subsidies.

This one-off house near Kinsale. County Cork, is available for Airbnb bookings.

This year Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, reported that 69.6% of Irish residents were living in dwellings categorised as too big for their needs in 2019 based on excess rooms and more specifically bedrooms. This was more than twice the EU average of 32.7%. On average there were 2.1 rooms per person in Irish households compared with the EU average of 1.6 rooms.

Large detached houses in particular in rural areas are a factor, as is under-occupation resulting from the rise of single adult households without children and older individuals or couples remaining after their children have grown up and left the home.

However, Eurostat also noted in respect of 2018 that "space constraints on tenants were particularly apparent in Ireland and Luxembourg, where tenants had 0.8 and 0.7 fewer rooms per person than people in owner-occupied dwellings; in France, Austria, Slovenia and Sweden the corresponding gap was also high (0.5 rooms)."

Ireland among 7 big tax havens as US seeks global minimum corporate tax of 21%

Share of US Multinational Corporation Income in Seven Big Havens, 2000-2019

In a stunning challenge to Ireland's low corporate tax regime which began in 1956, President Joe Biden and the United States Treasury on Wednesday announced that the US would seek a global minimum corporate tax rate of 21% in respect of the foreign profits of large American companies.

Ireland's current headline corporation tax rate is 12.5%. — the average rate in Europe (39 countries) was 19.99% in 2020 and 24.61% when weighted by GDP. The World rate was 23.85% and 25.85% (177 countries) according to the Tax Foundation. Check the trends since 1980.