Irish growth report

AIB issues a positive report on the Irish economy:

ECONOMIC growth was up at 5.5% last year and is expected to turn in a similarly impressive performance in 2005.

Those bullish findings have been published by AIB Global Treasury Services.

They confirm the view the economy is back on trend growth. The threat of a bubble has receded it says.

Employment is now rising by close to 3% year-on-year with the unemployment rate dropping below 4.5%. Inflation has fallen close to eurozone levels while the Budget sums are also pretty solid.

National accounts data for the first three quarters of last year show that GDP grew by an average 5.6% year-on-year while GNP, favoured by some economists as the best measure of Irish performance, averaged 4.9% for the period.