remember way back in the 80's when this place was in bits? FF made everything happen of course, but what role had the EU to play? does anybody know how much money they pumped into this tiny economy over the years? i.e. pumping lots of money in surely will bring massive growth to a small island with a very low population? I know FF like to take credit for this growth, but is this justified?
At their peak EU transfers to Ireland were about 4% or 5% of GDP. They are currently around 1% (because of the CAP). So, they did help. But, they weren't decisive. If we hadn't received any EU transfers since we joined the EU, our GDP and GNI would now be a few per cent less. Other countries such as Portugal and Greece received broadly similar transfers, but didn't achieve nearly as high growth rates as Ireland. Likewise Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland receive far higher transfers than Ireland, when you count both the EU-transfers and those from England, but their growth rates also are nowhere near Ireland's. In the past 5 years, EU transfers to Ireland as a percentage of GDP have dwindled to virtually nothing, but GDP and GNI in Ireland have continued to grow at a far faster rate than in any other EU-15 country. For example, in 2002 our GNI per capita was almost exactly equal to the EU-15 average - in 2007, it is 12.5% above the EU-15 average. Last year our GNI growth was 7.4%, the EU-15 average was 2.7%. If we continue to grow faster than the EU-15, we'll be 25% to 30% richer than countries like France, Germany and Italy by 2010. If there had been no change of government in 1997, the growth rates since 1997 would probably have been quite similar to what they have been. Despite all the politically-motivated predictions of a crash made by cranks on web sites like this one, every international economic forecasting organisation (EU, OECD, IMF, World Bank) predicts the Irish economy will continue to grow faster than other EU-15 countries.
is there a place to find the actual amounts invested by the EU?
probably somewhere on the Ireland CSO web site:
http://www.cso.ie/
in the economy section
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