The national accounts release is here; the BOP release is here.
The Q4 2011 Quarterly National Accounts have been published by the CSO. The –1.9% seasonally adjusted drop in real GDP in Q3 has been revised to –1.1% and the first estimate for Q4 is a fall of 0.2%. Although many will claim we never exited, Ireland is technically back in a recession for the first time since the end of 2009. Real GNP fell 2.2% in the quarter.
Looking at the individual components in real terms there was a small rise in consumption and a jump of 14% in investment (though from a very low base). Government consumption declined in all four quarters in 2011. The final quarter also saw a 1.1% drop in export volumes.
The preliminary annual figures for 2011 show that real growth in the year is estimated to be 0.7%. These figures are subject to revision (as was significantly seen with the 2009 figures) and it will be June before the final figures are available.
For all our Maastricht Criteria junkies nominal GDP for 2011 is estimated to be €156,438 million, a rise of 0.3%. This is slightly above the budget day forecast of €155,250 million. Nominal GNP fell 3.4% in the year and is estimated to be €123,879 million for the year, primarily because the outflow of net factor income rose to €32,559 million from €27,785 million in 2010.
The 2011 Balance of Payments has also been published. As expected there is a small surplus on the current account. This surplus of €127 million compares to a surplus of €761 million in 2010 but remains a marked improvement on the deficits of €10 billion recorded in 2007 and 2008.
Lots more detail in the releases to be discussed.
Gavin Kostick writes:
Last September Philip Lane was kind enough to let me announce the launch of Fishamble: The New Play Company’s “Tiny Plays for Ireland” on the blog.
The call for submissions with The Irish Times resulted in over 1,700 entries – a word count of over a million. The Irish Times tell us it is the largest creative writing response they have ever hard.
I read the lot, so I had in my mind for a while there a snapshot of the concerns, hopes, fears of the Irish Times reading public at least.
The response and the quality was so overwhelming, Fishamble decided to do two productions of two complete sets of plays. You can read more about the process here.
The first production is now up and running at Project Arts Centre, and the early reviews are in.
The whole project was, in part, influenced by this blog and the comments section, where different characters, voices and perspectives jostle with each other.
Posters, readers and commenters might be particularly interested in coming on the nights of either 28th or 30th of March when I’ll be chairing a free post-show discussion on issues arising from the plays and you might meet the odd person familiar from the blog. Please feel free to say hello.
The show really is selling out (full each night so far) so book in advance here.
Perhaps the kindest comment after the show so far was words to the effect of “it’s like an attempt to take the pulse of the Irish nation – I’m pleased to see we still have one.”
This is breaking that Prof. Honohan will seek leave from the ECB to not repay part of the promissory note worth 3.1 billion due at the end of this month. This is good news in the short run (and something Karl, Brian and I spoke at length about recently at the Oireachtas)
From the piece:
The Minister for Finance Michael Noonan confirmed in the Dáil this evening that negotiations were taking place with the ECB about settling the promissory note by delivery of an Irish government bond.
The concession may facilitate a longer-term effort to cut the cost of Ireland’s banking rescue, which helped tip the nation into an international bailout in 2010.
The immediate questions are:
1. What interest rate(s) will be charged on this(these) bond(s) and at what maturity(ies)?
2. What will fund the asset side of the balance sheet of the IBRC?
3. It looks to me like the promissory notes are going to be funded by the EFSF, or some other funding structure, but specifically what funding structure at the EU level will the bond use?
Update: RTE’s David Murphy reported on Twitter that the government are proposing to pay off the note with a bond which matures in 2025. If ECB says yes, the government gets 13 year delay on the €3bn payment.
Update2: Karl has the text of Minister Noonan’s speech on his blog now.
The excess level of debt in Ireland gets a frequent airing. Frequent reference is made to graphs like the following published by McKinsey.
Ireland has an excessive level of debt but it is the figures attributed to the financial and non-financial corporate sectors that push us into the stratosphere.
Outside of some coverage issues in relation to the general government debt, there is relatively broad agreement about the excessive debt levels in the household and government sectors.
On the issue of Non-Financial Corporate Debt there was a useful session of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance on the 7th of March. The committee heard from Michael Connolly from the CSO and Joe McNeill led a group from the Central Bank.
The transcript of the debate is here, and the intended text of the opening presentations as well as the slides used by Joe McNeill are here. Michael Connolly also used slides but I have not seen them. I will add a link if someone has it.
The debate meanders at times and a couple of misperceptions are persisted with by some of the Members but there are many useful contributions from the witnesses. A couple of quotes are provided below the fold but there was much more discussed.
The conclusion is straightforward. The non-financial corporate debt burden is not as large as dramatic graphs similar to that above like to indicate.
UPDATE: Michael Connolly has kindly provided the slides he submitted to the Committee. Slides 7 to 13 are particularly relevant and are very useful contributions on this issue.