Prepare for the rise of Irish Euroscepticism

Welcome to the wacky world of Irish national economic accounts. The official figures for Ireland’s tax-haven economy are so bizarre that they have been dubbed ‘leprechaun economics’ by Nobel Prize winning American economist Paul Krugman. And now the distorted figures which are used to measure Ireland’s GDP could be coming back to bite Ireland in the form of contributions the country must make to Brussels. Could this lead to a rapid rise in Euroscepticism across the Irish Sea?

GDP per head in Ireland is measured by the Irish government – and accepted by international organisations – as being 91 per cent higher than the UK. At face value, this appears to indicate that Ireland is almost twice as rich as the UK. But this is a travesty of reality. If we look at properly measured indicators of living standards, such as spending by Irish consumers and government, then Ireland is ten per cent poorer than the UK.