Meeting 6: 28th May, 2025

Productivity Liaison Group Meeting

28^th May 2025

Location:      Central Statistics Office, Ardee Road, Rathmines, Portobello Suite

Date:             May 28, 2025

Time:            11:00 am – 12:15 pm

Agenda 

1.            Meet and greet

2.            Terms of Reference

3.            Current CSO releases – presentation

• Annual Productivity
• Quarterly Productivity
• Following introductions, the terms of reference were outlined by Brian King (CSO). This meeting establishes the liaison group in 2025 with a view to continuing its work into the future. It was agreed that the group should meet twice a year, with the second meeting taking place later in the year.
• Doireann O’Brien (CSO) presented on CSO productivity-related publications. This included the recent Productivity in Ireland 2022 – 2023 and the 2024Q4 Quarterly Productivity releases and their content. The presentation also addressed the recent Hospitality Value Chain analysis, recent developments in CSO and future proposed developments relating to the foreign and domestic splits in the Irish economy using the ownership concept as opposed to the dominant method used in the above releases. Modelling hours using the Revenue PMOD datasets and the Earnings, Hours and Employment Costs Survey Data (EHECS) was mentioned as a new development that CSO is working on.

4.            CSO future developments for productivity

5.            Stakeholder priorities and feedback – discussion

Attendees:

Alannah O'Donnell (Dept. of Enterprise, Trade and Employment), Keith Fitzgerald (Dept. of Enterprise, Trade and Employment), Chris Smart (NERI Institute), Cian Ruane (Central Bank of Ireland), David Purdue (NTMA), Enda Keenan (virtual) (Central Bank of Ireland), Fionn Roche (virtual) (Dept. of Finance), Kevin Timoney (Davy), Killian Carroll (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council), Luke Rehill (Dept. of Finance), Niall Conroy (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council), Paul Egan (virtual) (ESRI), Tim Costello (IDA), Brian King (CSO), Doireann O’Brien (CSO), Ken Kennedy (CSO).

Apologies:

Dermot Coates (Dept. of Enterprise, Trade and Employment), Rory Mulholland (Dept. of Enterprise, Trade and Employment), Ian Power (Dept. of Finance), Marie Holthuijzen (Dept. of An Taoiseach), Eddie Casey (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council), Diarmuid Reidy (Dept. of Finance), Nigel Clarke (Dept. of An Taoiseach)

Minutes

• QALI was not included in the recent Productivity in Ireland 2022-2023 release and it was agreed that CSO would continue work on this measure of productivity.
• Users mentioned that when PxStat files were updated and names were thus changed that this caused difficulty with their processing of the results.
• There was a discussion around the different ways the CSO measures foreign and domestic activities in the Quarterly National Accounts and in the Quarterly Productivity releases. The inclusion of Nace 77 (renting services of machine and equipment) in the latter was a preferred approach by users. CSO will aim to continue to develop company-level breakdowns which are more accurate overall, but noted the concern of the users regarding the “dominant” approach and these 3 different measures.
• NTMA queried the use of the latest data available in the value chain analyses. It was suggested that the most recently available data should be a main consideration for future value chain analyses. CSO stated that the lag in the availability of supply and use tables is often the cause of “older” reference years being used. This curtails the full picture being available for later years. However, more recent data on GVA and wages, for example, can be included in the analyses.
• Enterprise queried what breakdown will be used for construction in the upcoming Value Chain Analysis. CSO will investigate the confidence intervals around the relevant variables in the Building and Construction Inquiry and decide on what is feasible. A 2006 Forfas study was referenced that used the number of dwellings in place of GVA when measuring productivity in residential construction. CSO will follow up with Dept. Enterprise on these alternative measures of productivity in construction. 
• The Central Bank stated that they use the OFATS and SBS data available via Eurostat for analysing the foreign and domestic sectors, for productivity and other business and trade indicators. A discussion ensued on this alternative source for productivity analyses. CSO noted that SBS and NA data should be coherent although there can be differences for valid reasons. CSO uses the National Accounts framework primarily for productivity analyses as it provides a consistent framework and allows productivity to be estimated over time and discounting for price effects and it uses hours from the framework. CSO will compare both sources and methods with a view to monitoring coherence of both measures over time and especially for apparent labour productivity (i.e. GVA per employed person).
• Davy queried why recorded media (NACE 18) was previously foreign but is now classed as domestic. This was due to the changing composition of company’s outputs over time resulting in the Nace activity becoming domestic more recently. 
• A discussion around the definition of foreign-owned companies took place. CSO use a well-defined and internationally comparable approach and will continue with this method. For more information see Foreign-Owned Corporations - CSO - Central Statistics Office
• It was agreed that firm size is an important consideration in any productivity analyses. It was further suggested that a longitudinal type analysis of both foreign and domestic companies would be beneficial, in particular for small domestic companies (from start-up and onwards as they grow). CSO will investigate providing productivity analyses using these additional dimensions (i.e. by Nace activity, by foreign/domestic ownership, by firm size, by age of the company). 
• Some users would like to see a consistent time series of the productivity results going back pre-2000. CSO noted this and understand the value of such a timeseries to researchers.
• The development of a modified GVA by economic activity from the bottom-up was briefly discussed. Davy asked if CSO would consider using this also for productivity analyses. CSO will include this in their work. 
• A brief discussion on the difficulty of modelling survey hours onto administrative data occurred. PMOD data is limited, i.e. no part-time nor full-time flags. Non-office (9-to-5) hours are difficult to model based on the Labour force survey data. CSO mentioned that EHECS will be used to help understand average paid hours across ownership types and sizes of companies.
• The next meeting is proposed for November 2025.