Irish Economy Best in EU

Ireland finished 2016 as the best performing economy in the EU for the third year in a row. It is a remarkable turnaround over a relatively short period of time, NewsNow reported. The banking crash in 2008 undermined economic sovereignty, which forced the government to accept a humiliating EU/IMF bailout in November 2010. At the low point of Ireland’s downturn in 2011 borrowing costs had reached 16%; the unemployment rate had peaked at 15.1% and the national debt had soared from a pre-crisis level of 23% of GDP to 120%. Borrowing costs are now at record lows of less than 1%, the unemployment rate is down to 7.3% and the national debt-to-GDP ratio fell below 100%.