Irish factory output fell sharply in April, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Monday, despite a strong start to the year, particularly for multinational-dominated manufacturing industries including pharmaceuticals.
Industrial production slumped by 13.7 per cent in April from the previous month after US President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from Europe and other trading partners.
However, the CSO warned that the figures are volatile due to the highly globalised nature of the Republic’s industrial base.
On a rolling three-month basis, factory output volumes and values surged in the three months to the end of April amid rapid expansion in the economy’s multinational-dominated pharmaceutical, computer and electronics sectors and stockpiling of goods by US companies in advance of Mr Trump’s tariffs.
Industrial production, the volume of output from all manufacturing units based in the Republic, climbed 13.2 per cent between February and April compared with the previous three months and 35.6 per cent from the same period last year.
Industrial turnover, the value of manufacturing output, also climbed by almost a quarter, the CSO said.
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This was largely driven by a sharp increase in output from the highly globalised “modern” manufacturing sector, which includes pharmaceutical and computing companies, which climbed by 41.8 per cent compared with the same period last year.
By contrast, there was a 0.7 per cent decline in output from the traditional manufacturing sector in the 12 months to the end of April, the CSO said.
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Still, the monthly decline in production volumes between March and April is likely a harbinger of further volatility in the face of significant uncertainty on either side of the Atlantic around US trade policy.
April’s decline was concentrated in the multinational-dominated modern industrial sector, where production fell by almost 15 per cent, compared with just 0.9 per cent in the traditional sector.
Colin Cotter, a statistician in the agency’s enterprise statistics division, said it should be noted that the figures reflect contract manufacturing activity and outsourcing in the multinational sector.
AIB’s latest purchasing managers’ index for the manufacturing May, based on a survey of producers, indicated that Irish factories remained in expansion mode last month despite a slight decline in output.
Some Irish firms recorded subdued spending by US clients, but concerns about the impact of tariffs and global economic uncertainty had eased slightly in May.
Overall, however, industrial production in the Republic reached its highest levels since 2022 in the early part of the year as US firms brought more goods into the world’s largest economy before Mr Trump’s so-called liberation day tariffs were announced.
