Underlying growth in the Irish economy was close to 6% last year, according to estimates from the National Treasury Management Agency.
The NTMA’s figures are the first calculation of Ireland’s growth for 2015 since the CSO indicated that the economy grew by 26% last year - the NTMA says these figures severely overstated economic activity.
The Irish Times reports that at a demonstration the NTMA raised concerns about the knock-on effects that the CSO figures will have - as EU rules require countries to reduce their deficits at a rate tied to their official GDP numbers.
Central Bank Governor Philip Lane has said that he will explore whether an alternative way of measuring Irish economic growth can be developed which will not be open to the kind of inflation seen in the CSO figures.
The national statistic agency is required to continue to use the same formula to calculate GDP.
Elsewhere - the NTMA has found that 10 companies contribute more than 40% of the country’s corporate tax take - that’s up from an average of 23% between 2008 and 2012. This makes Irish takings more vulnerable to the effects of these firms' future decisions.
