A small euro-area economy with a very large multinational footprint, where GDP, modified domestic demand, corporate tax, housing, skills, and foreign direct investment must be read together.
Ireland
Ireland is one of the hardest advanced economies to read from headline GDP alone. The domestic economy, the multinational balance sheet, and the public finances can all move in different ways.
Start by refusing the simple GDP story. Real GDP rose 12.3 percent in 2025, but modified domestic demand grew 4.9 percent. Both are useful, but they answer different questions: GDP captures the globalized national accounts, while MDD is closer to household, government, and domestic investment demand S1.
Then separate three cycles. The multinational cycle moves exports, intellectual-property flows, contract manufacturing, corporation tax, and measured productivity. The domestic cycle moves wages, housing, retail, public services, and infrastructure. The policy cycle moves through budget choices, ECB rates, Central Bank macroprudential rules, and capacity to build S1,S4,S6.
Ireland's strength is real: high employment, deep FDI clusters, a skilled workforce, EU market access, and a large fiscal revenue base. The fragility is also real: corporate-tax concentration, housing scarcity, infrastructure delays, and a small domestic economy sitting behind very large multinational accounts S7,S9,S10.
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