Fairy tales of Irish economy obscure truth

This is my sequel to the article 'Leprechaun economics continue to distort Ireland's statistics' which documents the continuing multinational distortions in Ireland's National Accounts.

The focus here is on propaganda and ignorance in particular from government enterprise agencies and the media, which give a false image of the Irish economy. The national statistics office has also sowed confusion with the terms "Irish-owned" and "Native Irish" firms.

In 2019 the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported that Ireland's SME firms (micro 1-9 employees, small 10-49 and medium 50-249) size companies dominated by domestic firms, had the lowest rate of exporters in the European Union, along with Greece.

Also in 2019 Enterprise Ireland, an Irish government agency, forecast that Irish-owned firms in the United States had created 180,000 jobs in 2017 and 2018.

This was a fairy tale!

Last June the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in a report said that in 2020 Irish-owned enterprises accounted for 27% of innovation expenditure in Ireland, while foreign-owned enterprises accounted for 73%. In October 2021 the CSO confirmed to me that Irish ownership includes mainly American Redomiciled PLC firms! They typically become Irish for tax avoidance purposes and control remains in the United States.

Leprechaun economics continue to distort Ireland's statistics

In July 2016 American economist Paul Krugman dubbed the annual revision of Irish 2015 GDP (gross domestic product) "Leprechaun economics." The 2015 GDP had jumped to a stunning 26.3% on the 2014 data. In more recent times, the Irish ambassador to the United States, Daniel Mulhall, called the use of the word "leprechaun" by the Nobel Prize-winning economist"an unacceptable slur."

Ambassador Mulhall and Enterprise Ireland, which promotes indigenous exporters, have promoted the fiction that investments by Irish companies in the United States are among the top foreign investors there. In 2021 it seems that Irish-owned companies "by country of ultimate beneficial owner" had investments of $353bn in the US — even bigger than France.

The biggest born in Ireland company, CRH, has a market capitalisation of about €29bn and the fake Irish firms called Redomiciled Companies, foster the delusion of large investments by many Irish firms.

Global exports by Irish-owned firms in 2021 were €25.5bn: €4.5bn to North America and €5.9bn to the other 18 member countries of the Eurozone — an external market of 437mn people. The UK was the biggest market at €7.5bn.

The total Irish export value in 2021 was €568bn and Irish-owned firms engaged in merchandise and tradeable services accounted for 4.5% of the total. International transport and tourism & travel had minus net export totals.

Fairy tales of Irish economy obscure truth  —  a related sequel to the current story