What has happened, what have we done, achieved, to have an economy valued at 38% more than peak Celtic Tiger times?
(Slightly) more people are at work in Ireland today than were at the previous peak in 2008.
The people who have joined the workforce are much better educated than those who have left. All of those joining the workforce had the benefit of the free education system, those retiring mostly missed out on that.
More people today are working in the most productive sectors and fewer in the less productive sectors.
The statistics tell us that these things have caused output to be 38% higher than it was in 2008.
I see that there was a spiked jump in Manufacturing GDP in 2015, I suspect that is Leprechaun economics.
There was indeed, as I understand it, that was mostly the result of the activities of the aircraft leasing industry, while it is a far cry from traditional manufacturing, and the underlying activity takes place all over the world, the aircraft are owned by Irish registered companies, and while the capital behind most of them is not Irish, (the capital behind the biggest is Chinese) the management and administration is Irish based.
A Chinese company paid a US manufacturer billions for a number of planes, they are being flown all over the world by crew from all over the world, but the management and admin staff are in Ireland. Employment is created in Ireland, payroll taxes are paid in Ireland, and Corporate profits taxes are payable (and paid I hope) in Ireland.
Mostly due to the genius of one Clare man.
It is said that this activity distorts the statistics, but the activity is real, and it is recorded in Ireland because Ireland is the legal residence of the owners.