Register of Public Sector Bodies 2022 - Final

Public corporations are government-controlled units, by means of either direct or indirect government ownership, but are classified outside the general government sector for national accounts and government accounts purposes.

Public corporations data is collected in the context of the Enhanced Economic Governance package (the "six-pack") that was adopted in 2011.  As part of its statistical obligations, the CSO sends public corporations data annually (in December) to Eurostat.

At end December 2022, there were 290 public corporations in central government. Of these, 250 were in the non-financial sector and the remaining 40 in the financial sector.  Note that the data on public corporations reflects the data at the end of December 2022 (which refers to data collected from their annual reports, reference year 2021) and as reported in the Register of Public Sector Bodies published in October 2022 . This is available on the CSO Website.

Under the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), Central banks are classified under their own financial corporation subsector. The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) is “responsible for maintaining monetary and financial stability and ensuring the financial system works in the interests of the community”.  Therefore, for the analysis below, the CBI has not been included as its mandate is specific and different to the other public corporations. See Background Notes for more information.

Data sources

This Register of Public Sector Bodies Final 2022 contains the list of entities collected from two surveys - the central government survey held in Quarter 1 2023 and the survey of local authorities held in Quarter 2 2023. 

This chapter is based on the financial data of the Public Corporations listed in the Register of Public Sector Bodies published in October 2022.  The difference between the corporations listed in this Register and the financial data detailed in this chapter, is due to the availability of financial data.

Subsidiaries

At end December 2022 there were 351 public corporations in the general government sector, including subsidiaries of large group head entities.

Annual financial information was only available at the company group level (rather than at individual company level). Therefore, the financial data is based on 118 entities as the subsidiaries are incorporated into the group accounts. 

The largest number of subsidiaries for a company group head was 94. The next highest numbers of subsidiaries in a group were 53 and 30.

There were 61 public corporations associated with local authorities.

Liabilities of public corporations

The liabilities of public corporations are reported once they exceed the threshold of 0.01% of GDP (or €426,283 million in 2021). This threshold is set by the European Commission and all EU Members States are legally obliged to send this data to Eurostat.

The liabilities of public corporations are not part of gross general government (Maastricht) debt. Nevertheless, Eurostat requires that member states collect data on this sector as their liabilities are referred to as “contingent liabilities” and are deemed to be potential obligations of government. These liabilities will only materialise as actual government liabilities if specific conditions prevail and are therefore not included in the general government accounts. 

A number of additional important aspects should also be taken into account when analysing the liabilities of public corporations. Firstly, the data collection refers to liabilities only and does not include assets of these entities.  Secondly, liabilities of public corporations are consolidated, which means that the liabilities which are owed to other entities in the same company group are consolidated out of the liabilities reported here.

Further financial data is collected from relevant annual financial statements when total liabilities exceed the threshold of 0.01% of GDP. At end December 2022, 26 entities (excluding CBI) breached this threshold, 25 belonging to central government and one to local government. The total liabilities of the 26 public corporations amounts to €157,835 million (36.4% of GDP). Of these, €1,294 million liabilities were owed to government, such as tax and social welfare.   

See Background Notes for more information.

A complete list of the Register is available on the Register of Public Sector Bodies - Final Table 1.1 (XLS 51KB) . Figure 2.1 in the Public Sector chapter displays a breakdown of the Register by subsector.

A CSV file is also available on the  Register of Public Sector Bodies - Final Table 1.1 csv 

NACE economic activity

Figure 6.1 below outlines the NACE economic activity classification of these 351 public corporations.  The largest number of public corporations is in the Electricity, gas economic activity sector (91 corporations)  (see Nace Rev 2 classification for full sector description). Financial and insurance activities (64 corporations) and Arts and entertainment (49 corporations) are the next largest economic activity sectors.