Category: Weekly Round Up

Ireland still seeing rapid employment growth

Yesterday’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) showed Irish employment rose by an exceptional 2.7% in 2024. This pace was sustained into the second half of the year, albeit with a choppy pattern of a 1.3% gain in Q3 2024, followed by 0.2% fall in Q4, which is most likely due to sampling volatility in the LFS. […]

Gauging Ireland’s exposure to Trump tariffs

The probability of US tariffs being imposed on a broad range of EU exports in the near future has increased. President Donald Trump has implemented 10% tariffs on China, reiterated threats to impose tariffs on the EU and announced 25% tariffs on all US imports of steel and aluminium. European Commission President Ursula von der […]

Bank of England cuts rates to 4.5% as it halves GDP forecast

The Bank of England cut its policy interest rate to 4.5% as expected today. This was despite the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) now expecting CPI inflation to pick-up to 3.75% during the summer of 2025, mainly due to higher energy prices. However, the most striking feature of the MPC’s new forecast was the halving in […]

Irish mortgage market grows to €12.6bn in 2024

This morning’s Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) data show that Ireland’s mortgage market grew to €12.6bn in 2024, up from €12.1bn in 2023. The growth in the mortgage market came despite flat mortgage lending volumes, instead relying on a 6% rise in average mortgage loan for house purchase to €309,000. Crucially, first-time-buyer lending volumes […]

Irish housing completions fall to 30,300 in 2024

This morning’s CSO data shows a disappointing 8,732 newly built homes completed in Q4 2024, down 15% on the year. This surprise decline in Q4 was almost entirely due to volatile apartment completions, which could bounce-back, whereas house completions were flat. Housing starts data, 60,243 in 2024, paint a very different picture, pointing to a […]

Rapid pace of Irish job creation sustained into Q4 2024

This morning’s CSO release showing employee numbers up 0.2% in November, or by 2.4% on the year, to a fresh high of 2.5 million is welcome news. Ireland’s rapid pace of job creation has continued into Q4. Even if December is flat, employee numbers look set to have risen by at least 0.7% in Q4 […]

MyHome report shows asking prices still buoyant in Q4 2024

This morning we have published the Bank of Ireland, MyHome report, pointing to sustained upward pressure on house prices. MyHome asking price inflation accelerated to 8.4% in Q4 2024. Also, properties are now being sold 9% above the original asking price, with one-in-seven transactions being settled at a 20% premium to asking. The market remains […]

How long can Ireland’s rapid population growth continue?

In our final ‘Economics Weekly’ publication before Christmas we focus on the most pressing issue facing the Irish economy – whether the recent exceptional pace of job creation and population growth can be sustained in the face of growing bottlenecks and capacity pressures. The Irish population grew by 1.9% for a second successive year, or […]

Irish GDP rebounds more strongly than expected in Q3

Irish GDP bounced back by 3.5% in Q3 2024, more sharply than we had expected, and following contractions in five of the past six quarters. The upshot is that we will now likely have to revise up our forecasts for both Irish GDP growth and modified domestic demand to zero and 3% respectively (from the […]

Irish banking lending growing durably again

Today’s Money and Banking statistics show Irish household deposits continue to grow robustly, up 4.1% in the year to October to €159bn. Lending to households was up 2.8% to €103bn, split between 2.6% growth in mortgage lending to €85bn and a 3.6% rise in other household lending to €18bn. Despite weak housing market liquidity, the […]