Ronan Lyons | Personal Website
Ronan Lyons | Personal Website

November 2010

Ireland’s Economic Crisis: What sort of hole are we in and how do we get out?

This post outlines how Ireland got into its economic mess, how deep the hole is and what the country must do to get out of the hole. Understanding what mistakes were made is a key part of the problem: this post outlines five, four of which date from entry into the eurozone. The fifth, the blanket guarantee in 2008, has given us a €60bn problem but we should not forget that it’s only half the size of the deficit problem. The post then outlines three questions voters should ask politicians who knock on their door over the coming weeks. Read more

As rents stabilise, the urban-rural gap widens in the rental market

This post reviews some very interesting findings from the real economy, at a time of great uncertainty about the government finances. In Ireland’s major cities, rents have stabilised, indicating a new floor may have been reached in income and jobs. This is not specific to any particular size of property. Instead, the big gap is between cities, which if anything may look understocked at the moment, and non-city areas, which are still significantly overstocked. Read more

And it’s hard to craft a Budget when you’re watched by Olli Rehn: Open Letter to soon-to-be European overlords

This blog post takes the form of an open letter to Commissioner Olli Rehn, who has twice in successive months pronounced that Ireland must give up its status as a “low tax economy”. The letter goes through the government’s revenues, heading by heading, and argues Ireland already is a normal tax country. Indeed, with corporate tax revenues almost twice as large in Ireland as in Germany, the mooted doubling of Ireland’s corporate tax rate is one of the last “solutions” the country needs. Read more

The importance of ease of doing business for economic recovery: evidence from 1,200 new jobs

Two very important reports were released last week, highlighting Ireland’s strong international competitiveness. The first was the World Bank Doing Business rankings for 2011, where Ireland ranked 9th in the world. The second was the IBM Global Investment Trends report, which highlighted Ireland as the top location for FDI jobs on the planet in 2009. This pipeline remains strong, and the post highlights 12 announcements over the past month that are creating 1,200 jobs around Ireland. Read more

Where should Ireland cut its public spending? Thoughts for Budget 2011 (II)

Two weeks ago, measures were proposed that would raise €6bn in new taxation by 2015. This post follows up by examining Ireland’s public spending. Like two weeks ago, it points out those areas where Ireland sticks out in international comparisons. It focuses on five areas of public expenditure – in particular capital investment and health-care – which if trimmed back to EU averages would save close to €10bn by 2015. Read more