It is a great pleasure for me to have this opportunity to discuss the recent performance of the Irish economy as well as some of the challenges for Ireland which participation in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) presents. Economic performance since 1994 The performance of the Irish economy in recent years has been excellent, both in historical terms and by international standards.
Since 1994, the economy has expanded at an annual average rate of around 8%. Expressed another way, output at the end of 2000 will be around 70% higher in real terms than at the beginning of the current phase of strong growth. To put this into perspective, the annual growth rate of the Irish economy averaged around 3½% between 1960 and 1993.