Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With regard to Deputy Broughan’s question about leprechaun economics, Mr. Lane was clever in so far as when we established the ESRG, he invited two members of EUROSTAT to sit on the committee to ensure they would be party to all of the hearings and analytical data that fed into why we were creating GNI*.

There was a rational reason for the growth rate. The 26% increase in the 2015 figures was due to the consequential impacts of the relocation of entire balance sheets to Ireland and related activity. The scale of the relocations in 2015 was substantial and added €300 billion worth of capital stocks to Irish balance sheets. The net effect of the sales of those products produced abroad under the contract of those relocated headquarters added to Ireland’s balance sheet of trade in goods and services in the national accounts. This doubled from €35 billion to €70 billion. Although there was a significant jump in 2015, the relocation and repatriation of intellectual property was not new. It started as far back as 2012. It is anticipated we will have growth or a reduction in these figures year on year. This is why EUROSTAT was invited to sit on the ESRG. This was to discuss the rationale behind the new analytical data of GNI*.

Although there were some disparaging remarks made not just by our European counterparts but some of our own home-grown economic experts, it was not leprechaun economics. It was a reflection of the repatriation of headquarters into the country and the additional intellectual property rights registered here.

We will continue to report the statistics, as was done in 2015, every year, with the exception we discussed earlier from 2005 to 2015.

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