# Officially Ireland is back in recession.



## demoivre (27 Jun 2013)

Irish Q1 GDP -0.6% q/q. Q4 2012 revised down to -0.2% so Ireland is technically back in recession. With further fiscal tightening of €3.1bn in 2014 and €2.5bn in 2015 it's hard to see where the growth is going to come from. Only a fraction of the capital budget from last year has been spent which compounds our problems. The titanic springs to mind.


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## Gerry Canning (27 Jun 2013)

Demoivre;

Stop being correct and stop re-depressing me !!
Ps anyone got a spare life-boat?


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## Purple (2 Jul 2013)

demoivre said:


> Irish Q1 GDP -0.6% q/q. Q4 2012 revised down to -0.2% so Ireland is technically back in recession. With further fiscal tightening of €3.1bn in 2014 and €2.5bn in 2015 it's hard to see where the growth is going to come from. Only a fraction of the capital budget from last year has been spent which compounds our problems. The titanic springs to mind.



The problem is that any real recovery will be export lead and our export markets are also slipping back into recession.


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## demoivre (2 Jul 2013)

Purple said:


> The problem is that any real recovery will be export lead and our export markets are also slipping back into recession.



Which is very depressing given that exports rose by 50% from 2000 to 2009 with employment in the sector that generated that growth falling from 310,000 to 250,000.


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## Purple (2 Jul 2013)

demoivre said:


> Which is very depressing given that exports rose by 50% from 2000 to 2009 with employment in the sector that generated that growth falling from 310,000 to 250,000.



It's hard to take our export figures seriously when so much of it is just a tax dodge/ transfer price exercise. What level of that growth came from the SME sector; that's where real job growth comes from.


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## demoivre (3 Jul 2013)

Purple said:


> It's hard to take our export figures seriously when so much of it is just a tax dodge/ transfer price exercise. What level of that growth came from the SME sector;



Don't know. Figures cover 85% of exports, the other 15% covers tourism and travel. Worth noting that 56% of private sector workers work for indigenous, non exporting SMEs and 64% of private sector workers are employed by indigenous non-exporting firms so domestic demand is crucial for jobs.


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