Dr. Adele Bergin:

The biggest risk for the macro economy at present is the potential impact of tariffs. At this stage, what we are seeing in the macro data is more the effects of uncertainty and how that may impact investment decisions. As Mr. Coffey said earlier, even if everything was to unwind to where the trade positions were in 2024, that uncertainty has already been impacting business decisions.

The Department, in its annual progress report, looked at a range of scenarios of how tariffs would impact the Irish economy.

Obviously it depends on the level they are at and whether there are retaliatory measures. One of the important points to mention for Ireland is that at present some of our biggest exporting sectors, such as pharma, are outside of the proposed tariffs. If there were separate measures for them we could see much bigger impacts than what has already been projected.