Ireland's Dashboard

Economy Dynamics

How the domestic economy is growing, whether pay is keeping up with prices, how the jobs market is doing, and where Ireland stands in the EU once multinational distortions are stripped out. Each figure shows the latest period its own source supports — they are not all the same date.

Real domestic demand growth

Calculated

+1.4%

Q2 2026, year-on-year

CSO NAQ05 · mdd.yoy.v1

Unemployment rate

Official

4.8%

Oct 2026, seasonally adjusted

Monthly estimate; revised when the quarterly Labour Force Survey is published.

CSO MUM01

Real weekly pay growth

Calculated

+0.3%

Q2 2026, year-on-year

Nominal +3.9% against CPI +3.6%. Q2 2026 earnings are preliminary.

CSO EHQ03 + CPM20 · wage.real.v1

EU living-standards rank

Official

10th of 27

2024, consumption per head

Index 99 (EU27 = 100). On GDP per head Ireland ranks 2nd (211).

Eurostat prc_ppp_ind

Growth

GDP is a poor guide to Irish living standards: multinational profits, intellectual property and aircraft leasing swell it. Modified domestic demand tracks spending and investment at home, quarter by quarter. GNI* is the CSO's annual measure of national income net of those distortions.

Momentum: real modified domestic demand

Ireland·Q2 2026·%

Data notes & limitations

Calculated (mdd.yoy.v1) from NAQ05 Modified Final Domestic Demand at constant prices, seasonally adjusted — CSO's headline modified domestic demand.

Excludes the change in stocks. The inflation page's macro.mdd is Modified Total Domestic Demand, which includes stocks and is far more volatile.

Change on the same quarter a year earlier, constant prices, seasonally adjusted. Latest Q2 2026. Calculated from CSO NAQ05.

The structural gap: GDP, GNI* and domestic demand

Ireland·2025·EUR billion

Data notes & limitations

Annual current-price GDP from CSO NA001 item 1. Official observed, € million.

Annual only — compare with GNI* in the same year. Quarterly GDP is not mixed into this series.

CSO publishes GNI* annually only (NA001 item 10). It is never interpolated to quarters.

GNI* removes redomiciled-company income and depreciation on IP and leased aircraft from GNI.

Calculated (mdd.annual_cp.v1): calendar-year sum of four unadjusted current-price NAQ05 quarters of Modified Final Domestic Demand. Complete years only.

Not a CSO annual publication. Cite NAQ05 for the quarterly observations.

Annual, current prices, € billion. In 2025 GNI* was €334bn against GDP of €602bn — 55% of it. GDP and GNI*: CSO NA001. Domestic demand: calendar-year sum of NAQ05 quarters (calculated). GNI* is annual only and is never interpolated.

Ireland in the EU

Purchasing power standards remove price-level differences between countries. Actual individual consumption per head — what households consume, including public services — is Eurostat's preferred welfare comparison. GDP per head shows how much Irish output figures overstate it.

Actual individual consumption per head

Ireland·2024·EU27 = 100

  1. 1Luxembourg141
  2. 2Netherlands120
  3. 3Germany118
  4. 4Austria112
  5. 4Belgium112
  6. 6Denmark108
  7. 7France106
  8. 8Sweden105
  9. 9Finland104
  10. 10Ireland99
  11. 11Italy98
  12. 12Cyprus96
  13. 13Spain92
  14. 13Malta92
  15. 15Lithuania89
  16. 16Romania88
  17. 17Portugal85
  18. 17Slovenia85
  19. 19Poland84
  20. 20Czechia82
  21. 21Greece81
  22. 22Croatia78
  23. 22Slovakia78
  24. 24Latvia76
  25. 25Bulgaria74
  26. 25Estonia74
  27. 27Hungary72
Data notes & limitations

Actual individual consumption covers goods and services households consume, including those provided by government and non-profits. Eurostat's preferred measure of material welfare.

Rank is computed live among the 27 member states and is never stored. Recent years may be provisional (p) and revised.

EU27 = 100 (vertical line), 2024. Rank among 27 member states, computed live.

GDP per head

Ireland·2024·EU27 = 100

  1. 1Luxembourg242
  2. 2Ireland211
  3. 3Netherlands136
  4. 4Denmark128
  5. 5Austria116
  6. 5Belgium116
  7. 7Germany115
  8. 8Sweden113
  9. 9Malta109
  10. 10Finland103
  11. 11France99
  12. 12Italy98
  13. 13Cyprus95
  14. 14Spain92
  15. 15Czechia91
  16. 15Slovenia91
  17. 17Lithuania88
  18. 18Portugal82
  19. 19Estonia79
  20. 19Poland79
  21. 21Romania78
  22. 22Croatia77
  23. 22Hungary77
  24. 24Slovakia75
  25. 25Latvia71
  26. 26Greece70
  27. 27Bulgaria66
Data notes & limitations

Eurostat volume index per capita in purchasing power standards, EU27_2020 = 100. A comparison source only — Irish domestic output series stay on CSO.

Ireland's GDP is inflated by multinational profits, IP relocation and aircraft leasing; a high rank here does not mean high domestic living standards.

Rank is computed live among the 27 member states (aggregates excluded) from the latest observed vintage. Eurostat flags recent years provisional (p).

EU27 = 100 (vertical line), 2024. Ireland and Luxembourg are inflated by multinational activity.

Pay and prices

Average weekly earnings growth from the CSO's quarterly earnings survey, deflated by the average inflation rate in the same quarter. Green bars show quarters when pay outpaced prices; red when it fell behind.

Nominal pay, inflation and real pay growth

Ireland·Q2 2026·%

Data notes & limitations

Calculated (wage.ehecs_yoy.v1): change on the same quarter a year earlier in EHQ03 average weekly earnings.

Not the DEA05 annual wage-growth series (macro.wage_growth).

Calculated (cpi.yoy_quarterly.v1): mean of the three monthly CPM20 headline 12-month rates in each quarter. Not a CSO quarterly index.

A quarter is written only when all three months are published.

Calculated (wage.real.v1): nominal EHQ03 weekly earnings growth deflated by the quarterly average CPI rate — (1 + nominal) ÷ (1 + CPI) − 1, not nominal minus CPI.

Ends at the last quarter with both an earnings figure and all three CPI months. The newest earnings quarter is preliminary.

Year-on-year, quarterly. Ends Q2 2026, the last quarter with both earnings and all three months of CPI. CSO publishes the newest earnings quarter as preliminary. Real = (1 + nominal) ÷ (1 + CPI) − 1.

Jobs

The monthly unemployment estimate gives the latest reading; the quarterly Labour Force Survey is the benchmark it is revised to. The EU comparison uses Eurostat's harmonised employment rate for ages 20–64.

Unemployment rate

Ireland·Oct 2026·%

Data notes & limitations

CSO MUM01 seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment rate, ages 15-74. Monthly estimates are revised when the quarterly LFS is published.

Shown separately from the quarterly QLF02 series (labour.unemployment_rate). Never combine them into one line.

State-level LFS series. County unemployment is not published for this indicator.

ILO definitions differ from claimant-count style measures.

Seasonally adjusted, ages 15–74. Monthly to Oct 2026. Two CSO series shown side by side, not combined.

Employment rate, ages 20–64

Ireland·2025·%

Data notes & limitations

Eurostat harmonised LFS employment rate, ages 20-64, annual. Not interchangeable with CSO quarterly LFS headline rates.

The EU 2030 target of 78% is a chart annotation, not a fact row.

Annual. 2025: Ireland 80.2%, EU27 76.1%. Eurostat lfsi_emp_a.

Methodology & disclosures

Official observations come from the CSO (NA001, NAQ05, EHQ03, CPM20, MUM01, QLF02) and Eurostat (prc_ppp_ind, lfsi_emp_a). Growth rates, the quarterly CPI average, real pay and annual domestic demand are calculated by Ireland's Dashboard and stored separately — they never overwrite official values.

EU ranks are computed when the page is built from the latest Eurostat release, among the 27 member states only. They are not stored.

Definitions and methods: Methodology · Domestic demand · Real pay · EU consumption per head.