Irish economy will remain strong

Business World:

Delegates at the IAPF conference were told today that growth in the Irish economy over the next decade should continue to outpace the Eurozone and OECD area.

Dermot O'Brien, economist with NCB Stockbrokers told delegates at the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) Annual Investment Conference in Dublin Castle, that strong underlying fundamentals should ensure that growth in the economy will remain sufficiently strong to withstand the impact of elevated oil prices and higher interest rates.

O'Brien said that the rate of increase in Irish residential property prices should ease to 5% or 6% in 2005 but he saw no likelihood of a property crash even if interest rates were to increase by a couple of percentage points.

The NCB economist also told the IAPF conference that he expected growth in Irish GDP this year of around 6% rising to 6.5% next year, helped by the impact of maturing SSIA savings.

"Because of Ireland's unique demographics and economic structure, growth is likely to remain strong for the remainder of the decade working out at perhaps 5 to 5.5% per annum," stated O'Brien.

The economist's medium outlook was that Ireland had the capacity to continue to generate impressive growth rates of 4 to 4.5% in the following ten years. Moreover, he argued that Ireland's economic performance was being underpinned by continued growth in population.

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