Dr. Tom McDonnell:

It is.

Not only that - obviously, there is a magical realism associated with GDP in Ireland - but modified domestic demand is expected to grow by 2% or 2.5% this year. I think that is quite a reasonable performance and, in fact, it could grow by more, although the tariffs are creating a lot of uncertainty. In terms of inflation, we are looking at something in the region of close to but perhaps slightly below 2%.

In terms of employment growth, we have been growing at a very fast clip. The economy has never been stronger than it is now. We have had many years of strong employment growth, and that employment growth has been faster than in other European countries. Even with tariffs, we are still looking at employment growth in the years to come that is broadly in line with historical norms for advanced EU economies, where the average would be about 1.2%. A lot will depend on inward migration and things like that, which are very difficult to forecast. Nonetheless, the short answer is that our projections are for continued strong growth, albeit slower growth in some respects than we have had in previous years, and I mean real growth, not GDP growth. One of the reasons for that is that we had the inflationary surge and, kind of gliding along behind it, as often happens because wages tend to follow inflation rather than the other way round, after the falling wages at the beginning of the cost-of-living crisis, we have now moved into a period where real wage growth is quite fast. That is because the wage growth was predicated on the higher inflation rates that were in place at the time, because the wage deals or pay bargaining deals often go years into the future. That will add to household income, which is one of the things that is driving consumption at the moment.