Southern Irish counties are EU’s richest region

Apple, one of Ireland's top corporation tax payers, has been in Cork since the 1980s.

Sarah Collins

Ireland’s southern region — including counties Wexford, Waterford and Cork — was the richest area in the EU in 2022, according to Eurostat, usurping Luxembourg at the top of the table.

Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the region, which also includes Carlow, Kilkenny and Kerry, was almost three times the EU average that year (286pc). The region also had the EU’s third-highest GDP growth rate that year, at 13.5pc.

Cork is the European headquarters of tech giant Apple and was the first Irish location of pharmaceutical multinational Pfizer, which still has a large plant in Ringaskiddy. GDP growth across Ireland surged by almost 10pc in 2022 thanks to a boost in pharmaceutical and computer exports.

The Eurostat data shows the south came in well ahead of the eastern and midland region, which contains Dublin and commuter counties Kildare and Wicklow, as well as Louth, Meath, Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath. GDP per capita in this area was 247pc of the EU average in 2022 and the third highest in the bloc in 2022.

Ireland is divided into three regions for EU funding purposes. GDP per capita in Ireland’s northern and western region — which includes Donegal, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon — was well under half that rate, though it was still slightly above the EU average at 105pc.

Luxembourg (257pc of the EU average) had the second-highest GDP per capita in 2022, the EU’s statistics agency said today, down from first place in 2021.

The Prague region in the Czech Republic (207pc of the EU average) and the Brussels region in Belgium (196pc) came in fourth and fifth place.

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Eurostat said the high GDP in Irish regions was partly down to “major multinational enterprises” located there. The high figures for Luxembourg, Brussels and Prague was attributed, in part, to a high inflow of commuting workers.

The regions with the lowest regional GDP per capita in 2022 were Mayotte, an overseas region of France, where GDP was just 30pc of the EU average.

The Bulgarian region of Severozapaden and France’s Guyane both had GDP of just 40pc of the EU average. Voreio Aigaio in Greece (41pc) and Severen Tsentralen in Bulgaria (42pc) were the next lowest.

In 2022, real GDP increased in 231 of the bloc’s 242 regions, with decreases in just 11.

Ireland’s southern region had the third-highest growth in the EU that year, at 13.5pc, beaten only by two Portuguese regions – the Algarve and Madeira. The Yugoiztochen region in Bulgaria had the largest drop in GDP, at 3.1pc.

The results come from data on regional national accounts published by the EU’s statistics agency, Eurostat, on Tuesday.