State-owned enterprise sector, 2018

Abstract

Table 1 provides some basic financial indicators for the 2017 financial year for the fourteen largest non-financial state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Ireland. The results highlight the significant contribution of the SOE sector to the economy, with the aggregate turnover of the SOEs included in Table 1 equivalent to 5.2 per cent of nominal modified gross national income in 2017, while the aggregate number of SOE employees represents approximately 1.7 per cent of total national employment. Table 1 also highlights the considerable scale of the investment carried out by SOEs, which saw over €2.1 billion of capital expenditure in 2017 (to put this in context, gross fixed public capital formation in 2017 was €5.5 billion). In addition, the dividends paid to the Exchequer in 2017 amounted to a substantial €328.9 million, bringing the total amount transferred to the Exchequer by the SOEs included in Table 1 between 2008 and 2017 to almost €2.6 billion.