Ireland has been one of the global success stories
of the last 15 years. The transformation of the
economy over this short period of time has been
dramatic. Between the mid-to-late 1980s and the
present, (1) Ireland’s national income per head
rose from 65 percent of the EU15 average to
above parity; (2) unemployment fell from 17 percent
of the labour force – double the EU15 average
of the time – to around 4 percent, which is half
the current EU15 average; (3) government debt
fell from 120 percent of GDP to around 30 percent,
and (4) an almost doubling of the numbers at
work saw emigration replaced by very substantial
immigration.7