Domestic Industrial Production January 2025

Introduction

Industrial Production and Turnover (IPT) monitors the volume of production and value of turnover of industrial local units. Two indices are compiled from the survey – the monthly index of production and the monthly index of turnover.

Since 2015, contract manufacturing and outsourcing activity attributable to Ireland has dominated a large part of Irelands industrial production. Much of this production is not occurring in the state. The IPT is prepared in compliance with the requirement of EU Regulation 1165/98, as amended, and the standards set out in the UN 2010 International Recommendations for the Index of Industrial Production. These standards set out that outsourced production is included as part of an enterprise’s Irish production.

As a result of user engagement and to provide additional insights into domestic production, additional questions were added the IPT survey form in 2020 to support the creation of a new indicator of domestic production occurring in the state only, attributable to Ireland.

The new Domestic Production Index traces the quantitative volume of production (i.e. with the effect of price changes excluded) each month of goods produced in the state only, and purposely excludes all outsourcing and contract manufacturing production occurring abroad.

Sample Covered

Industrial Production covers all the larger local units which between them account for the bulk of industrial output – in general those which in the base year 2021 had twenty or more persons engaged in NACE divisions 5 to 35. For certain sectors the threshold of 20 persons engaged is lowered where this is considered necessary to ensure representativeness of the sample or where data for a sector would have to be kept confidential if a threshold at 20 persons engaged was applied. The business activity classifications are based on the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2).

Index Calculation

For the Domestic Production Index, the production sub-indices are compiled for each detailed NACE class (i.e. NACE 4-digit level). These sub-indices are combined to provide the indices for broader sectoral groupings (NACE 2-digit and groupings of NACE) using a proportion of gross value added at factor cost (GVA) as the weight. This proportion of weighting is based directly on data received from each local unit enterprise for the base year for both Domestic and Total production. GVA is calculated from the 2021 Census of Industrial Production (CIP). The weights will be reviewed in conjunction with the rebase for IPT every 5 years.

The production indices are calculated at constant prices, using the Wholesale Price Index (Base year 2021=100) as deflators.

NACE Classification

The business activity classifications used in this Statistical release are based on the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community i.e. NACE Rev. 2. For further information on the NACE Rev. 2 classification of industrial activity, see NACE Coder.

Definitions

All Industries: NACE 05 to 35

This includes Mining & Quarrying (NACE 05 to 09), Manufacturing Industries (NACE 10 to 33), Electricity, Gas, Steam & Air Conditioning Supply (NACE 35).

Manufacturing Industries: NACE 10 to 33

This comprises all sectors classified NACE 10 to 33.

Wholesale Price Index (Base year=2021)

The wholesale price indices were revised in December 2024 to include updated weights (base year=2021). New base year weights were compiled for the Wholesale Price Index using the results of the 2021 Census of Industrial Production (CIP) and the Prodcom Inquiry surveys. New base weights were applied to each three-digit NACE group based on the Census of Industrial Production and the commodity group weights were assigned on the basis of the Prodcom Inquiry. 

For further information on the updated WPI indices see Rebase Information.