# Is the Irish economy growing, stalling or declining?



## Brendan Burgess (12 Jul 2012)

I saw this headline on the RTE News last night and thought - "More bad news..." 

*[broken link removed]*

But I was cheered up by Dan O'Brien's reporting of the exact same news in today's Irish Times 

*[broken link removed]*


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## serotoninsid (12 Jul 2012)

I'm confused. Which can be taken as the more accurate and what is the rationale in reaching that conclusion?


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## Brendan Burgess (12 Jul 2012)

I think that RTE looked at the quarter on quarter decline.

The Irish Times looked at the year on year growth


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## Brendan Burgess (13 Jul 2012)

I read the more detailed analysis in the business pages of the Irish Times
[broken link removed]



> THE DOMESTIC economy and exports both grew solidly in the first  quarter of the year, according to figures inadvertently published on the  Central Statistics Office’s website yesterday.
> 
> 
> A surge in imports  pushed the two main measures of economic activity – gross domestic  product and gross national product – into negative territory.
> ...



It is hard enough to get the actual data right which shows what a waste of time economic forecasting is.


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## Brendan Burgess (13 Jul 2012)

Here are some more headlines on the same figures

Sluggish start to 2012 as growth momentum stalls   Irish Examiner 

[broken link removed]   Reuters 

[broken link removed] TV3 

Brendan Keenan in the Irish Independent also got it right with a generally positive article 


Gap widens between Irish output and income as tech effect grows



> There were some encouraging signs in the figures. Activity in the  domestic economy grew for the first time in almost two years, although  much of this was due to purchases of aircraft by leasing firms and  airlines, and the biggest rise in government spending on goods and  services since the crash.
> 
> 
> Data also showed that Ireland's  financial position with the rest of the world was stronger than had been  thought. The balance of payments surplus for last year was increased  more than ten fold to €1.8bn, while the 2010 figure more than doubled.


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## Brendan Burgess (13 Jul 2012)

And complete confusion over on IrishEconomy.ie 



> For Q1 2012 they show that real GDP dropped 1.1% in the quarter so [broken link removed] was fully wrong while this poll was somewhat right.
> 
> To add to the confusion the release shows an economy that has contracted but exited recession at the same time.


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## Brendan Burgess (13 Jul 2012)

Séamus Coffey has done a piece reconciling the opposing views on his website

Apparently the reported growth in investment was an anomaly due to the import of €1.4 billion in large aircraft by leasing companies. Without these, investment and GNP would have fallen.



> From the trade data, these aircraft imports will feed through to  Investment in transport equipment in the Domestic Demand data.   Investment did jump in Q1 2012 but it was because aircraft leasing  companies based in Ireland bought some aircraft rather than any real  improvement in domestic economic conditions.  As [broken link removed] shows this distortion of domestic demand figures is going to continue.
> 
> Absent  this propping up by aircraft leasing companies it is likely that  Investment would have registered a similar change to Consumption, i.e. a  drop.  Yesterday’s release does not herald the return of the domestic  economy.


Brendan


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