County Incomes and GDP 2024

Gross Value Added (GVA) in the regional accounts is calculated using the income method. The major components of GVA are Gross Operating Surplus (GOS) plus Compensation of Employees (COE) i.e. the enterprise profits on the goods and services they produce plus labour costs, mainly wages and salaries. The regional accounts calculates the GOS generated by an enterprise and the COE paid to employees in a county or region where the business is located and the location where the employee works.

Figure 4.1 shows the GVA at basic prices per person by county and NUTS 3 region for 2024. Counties and regions have been shown together to help account for counties whose data is suppressed due to confidentiality. The counties and region with largest GVA per person are Dublin at €173,586, the South-West (Cork and Kerry) at €155,188 and Kildare at €77,944. As seen in Figure 3.1, the major contributor towards GVA in Dublin is the Information & Communication sector, while Manfacturing accounts for a very signficant proportion of GVA created in the South-West and Kildare. Longford (€27,317) and the Border region (€31,057) rank lowest in terms of GVA per person.

Figure 4.2 shows the GVA in basic prices by NUTS 2 region. In all years the Eastern & Midland region is responsible for the largest share of national GVA. In 2024, GVA from the Eastern & Midland region accounted for 60% of the national total, while the Southern region accounted for 32% and the remaining 8% came from the Northern & Western region. While GVA nationally rose by just over 7% in 2024, the growth was almost entirely concentrated in the Eastern & Midland region at 13%, while the Southern region remained unchanged and the Northern & Western region grew by just over 1%.

Figure 4.3 shows the composition of GVA at factor cost by county and region in 2024. The two main components of GVA at factor cost were Compensation of Employees (COE) and Gross Operating Surplus (GOS), other components such as stock appreciation or rent were either very low or negligible. The top three counties and regions with respect to GVA - Dublin, the South-West and Kildare - also saw the largest share of their GVA come from GOS indicating highly profitable sectors were active within the regions. Counties such as Longford, Carlow and Sligo had the highest proportion of their GVA come from COE indicating more labour intensive sectors were prominant in the counties.

Figure 4.4 shows the percentage growth rate of the two major components of GVA at factor cost in 2024. A significant outlier in GVA growth was Kildare (49%), which was driven by very significant growth in GOS (82%) from the previous year. The growth of GOS in Kildare also was also responsible for the large increase in GOS (36%) and GVA (23%) in the Mid-East region. Dublin also saw considerable growth in GOS (13%) and COE (12%) which resulted in an overall increase in GVA by 12%. GOS in the South-West fell by just over 3% in 2024 but an increase in COE by 7% resulted in a smaller decline in GVA of under 2%. Galway saw its GOS fall by 10% in 2024, but COE rose by over 8% and resulted in an overall decline in GVA by 1.5% from 2023. GVA in the West stayed largely on par with 2023 with a growth rate of 0.3%.

Figure 4.5 shows the proportion of GVA at factor cost generated by foreign and domestic enterprises. In 2024, the South-West and Dublin had the largest share of their GVA coming from foreign controlled enterprises. A large disparity existed across counties and regions; foreign controlled enterprises accounted for 80% of GVA produced in the South-West compared with 17% in Kilkenny or 22% in Monaghan. Counties and regions containing cities saw a larger share of their GVA coming from foreign enterprises than domestic. Overall, 34% of national GVA was generated by domestic enterprises and 66% came from foreign.

Index of GVA per person at basic price at NUTS3 level where the state average equals 100 is shown in Map 4.1. The monetary values of GVA at basic price are shown in Table 4.1. The largest GVA per capita values were seen in Dublin with an index of 174.4 and GVA of €173,586 per person, followed by the South-West with an index of 156.0 and GVA of €155,188 per person. This was the first year since 2014 GVA at basic prices per person was larger in Dublin than the South-West. This was due to the slowing of GVA growth in the Southern region as shown in Figure 4.2.

Both Dublin and the South-West were the only two regions whose GVA per capita is significantly beyond the State average in 2024. The GVA per person in all other regions fell significantly below the state average: the Mid-West is ranked third overall with an index of 62. The regions with the lowest GVA per capita are the Midland and Border region with indices of 38.4 and 31.2 respectively. The areas of lowest GVA are also the areas that lack economic sectors like Manufacturing and Information and Communication, and are largely reliant on Public Administration to generate value and employment in the region.