# 1. The booming Irish economy … but for how long?
A recent issue of The Economist (June 14, 2025, page 40) featured a piece entitled “The Emerald petro-state: how Ireland became the Saudi Arabia of siphoned-off global profits” ( https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/06/12/how-ireland-became-the-saudi-arabia-of-siphoned-off-global-profits). As usual, a smart, perceptive, and knowledgeable piece from the newspaper published since 1843 “ … to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress”.
Interestingly, BBC Radio 4 had a similar piece on Sunday, June 15th entitled “Ireland’s Pot of Gold” - hopefully you can access it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002dkzs
The Economist piece emphasized the importance of direct foreign investment from the US to the Irish economy in the form of corporate tax - an estimated $23 billion (yes, thats with a “B”!) - and local employment by foreign companies. The latter, mostly in pharmaceutical manufacturing at several sites and technology in Dublin, accounts for 11% of the workforce and a third of income tax. So, regardless of any “tax shenanigans”, and royalties & licensing fees that benefit the Irish economy, a well-trained workforce, access to the EU market (surely a benefit of now being the only member of the EU with English as a first language - thanks Britain!), and openness to foreign capital (for which you can read: “hey, Irish-America, send us your raw materials and accountants!”) has surely contributed to this bonanza.
A shadow on the whole affair comes from potential tariffs from an apparent goods deficit with the US. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (https://www.fiscalcouncil.ie/), an independent statutory body that acts as Ireland’s budgetary watchdog, has warned of Ireland falling prey to “Dutch disease”: the imbalance that struck the Netherlands in the 1970s as natural gas money sent the rest of the economy off-kilter. According to a June 2025 fiscal assessment report from the council, just 3 US companies accounted for 38% of all corporate tax receipts in 2023 (https://www.fiscalcouncil.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Fiscal-Assessment-Report-June-2025.pdf).
As noted in a recent New York Times article (“Drugmakers Feel Sting of Tariffs on Ireland", August 18 2025: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/health/pharma-tariffs-ireland-taxes.html) manufacturing blockbuster drugs in Ireland offers tax benefits to for American drug companies, which also benefit from moving their patents and profits there to avoid higher tax rates in the US. But concern about tariffs, and presumably to appease Mr Trump, the American drugmaker Merck announced that it will begin shifting the production of its cancer drug Keytruda destined for American patients to manufacturing sites in the US.
The BBC Radio 4 podcast paints a very similar picture; in fact, some of the same people are interviewed as in the Economist article. Chris Paige, the BBC’s Ireland correspondent, starts at “silicon docks”, the part of the lower River Liffey that has undergone a dramatic rejuvenation over the past 30 years In my college and graduate school days in the 1970s and ‘80s it was not a place to wander, as it consisted of abandoned warehouses that were “dodgy” to say the least … it is now home to the glass and steel modern office blocks of US companies like Google, Meta and DocuSign. As with the Economist article, the emphasis is on how the Irish economy has benefited from their presence. The relatively poorer state of the British exchequer - the irony is not lost on someone who grew up in an impoverished Irish exchequer, compared to that of Britain at the time. However, in spite of the wealth and what the reporter describes as “one of the richest countries in the world”, all is not perfect in the emerald isle. House and apartment (“flats”) costs are a major issue, especially in Dublin.
The bottom line is that the Irish economy is booming, though its underpinnings may be wobbly and susceptible to political tantrums out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Regardless of any wobbliness, the Irish economy is clearly doing a lot better and is far stronger than it was when I emigrated in 1989. One would prefer if more of this economic strength came from the development of indigenous industries that would better withstand the vagaries of American economic policy. And as noted by Neil McGowan, an Irish union organizer, the recently-announced 15% tariff is "not a good situation to be in, but it could have been a lot worse”.