Ireland’s domestic economy to grow by 4.2pc in 2015 – ESRI

The ESRI said today that it is expecting Ireland’s gross national product (GNP) to grow by 4.2pc this year and by 3.6pc in 2016.

In its Quarterly Economic Commentary, Summer 2015, the ESRI is also forecasting the unemployment rate to fall to 9.7pc in 22015 and to 8.4pc in 2016.

 “We continue to believe that the Irish economy will grow quite strongly in both 2015 and 2016,” said ESRI’s Kieran McQuinn, a co-author of the report. “Notwithstanding the poorer than expected performance of both the US and UK economies in the first quarter of 2015, most domestic indicators, including taxation receipts, indicate that the recovery in economic performance is still very evident in the Irish economy.”

“We expect that the domestic economy will make a major contribution to growth in 2015 and 2016,” said co-author David Duffy, ESRI. “Having updated our estimates we now expect the numbers of homeowners in negative equity to fall to approximately 160,000 by the end of this year and could fall to below 100,000 by the end of 2016.”

Grainne Rothery