“Despite ongoing external headwinds, today’s figures show the domestic economy continued to grow robustly in the first quarter with Modified Domestic Demand expanding by 4¼ per cent on an annual basis.

Encouragingly, growth was broad based with strong contributions from consumer spending and, in particular, from investment. Investment was up over 9 per cent on an annual basis driven by strong activity in the residential sector, as well as a significant expansion in investment in the multinational sector.

“While today’s figures show a large annual contraction of 17 per cent in GDP, this reflects a return to more normal levels of exports in the first quarter of this year. Indeed, the exceptional level of exports seen in the same quarter of last year was driven, in part, by the front-loading of pharmaceutical exports to the US in anticipation of tariffs. My Department expects this effect to moderate over the coming quarters, with GDP projected to return to growth over the remainder of the year.

“All-in-all, today’s figures point to continued resilience in the domestic economy. This cannot, however, give rise to complacency, in particular, given the continued disruption to energy supplies from the Middle East. Indeed, earlier this week, the OECD published a stark reminder that a prolonged period of disruption to commodity flows in the Gulf would dampen global growth further. This is in line with scenario analysis conducted by my Department for the Irish economy.

“Looking forward, we must continue to build up our resilience to future shocks, while continuing to maintain our competitiveness. To this end, I look forward to the upcoming National Economic Dialogue which will allow for a wider discussion on priorities ahead of Budget 2027 and how we can boost our resilience over the medium to long-term.