At the end of the 1990s, Ireland remained top of the OECD growth league and had the largest current account surplus in the world. Since 1994, the unofficial birth date of the "Celtic Tiger,"" growth has proceeded at a historically unprecedented 8.6 per cent per year. "An amazing turnaround- was the baffled verdict of the OECD in its 1999 Economic Survey for Ireland.
About 415,000 extra jobs were filled between 1993 and the end of 1999, a rise of over 35 per cent on the initial level. This huge expansion in job opportunities had far-reaching repercussions. One was a fall in unemployment from 16 per cent to six per cent. Another was the reversal from net emigration to significant net immigration. .
As a result of all the growth, a debt/GDP ratio that soared over 100 per cent in the late 1980s declined rapidly to 47 per cent in 2000. Irish GDP per capita in 2000 stood at 115 per cent of EU average GDP. Changes in the labour market also contributed to a rise in living standards (though here we still have catching up to do). .
Background.
No other European country had recorded so slow a rate of growth of national income from Independence (in 1922) to 1985. During that period, national income per head had grown by an average 1.8 per cent per year. The fact that we were bottom of the growth league in comparison with our neighbours suggests under-achievement in this interlude. However, GDP data in the 1950-1998 period as a unit suggests that Ireland was on track', in the sense that it grew as fast as an economy with its 1950 income level might be expected to grow. This, and signs that the economy is now returning to more modest growth rates, suggest that the Celtic Tiger was making up for lost ground. .
There is general agreement both on the list of factors that contributed to growth and on the fact that they fed on each other "in a process of cumulative and circular causation. The only area of contention to date concerns the weight to be attached to the different causal factors.