Vasileios Madouros: Enabling a decade of higher investment
Speech by Mr Vasileios Madouros, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, at TU (Technical University) Dublin, Dublin, 12 February 2026.
The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.
Over the course of the next decade, we will need to allocate more of our collective resources towards domestic investment.
In part, that is because of where we are coming from. Despite very strong economic growth in recent years, investment in key domestic sectors has been lacklustre.
But it is also because of where are going. Ireland, like many other countries, is facing profound structural transitions. Navigating these will require additional investment in the years ahead.
Raising Ireland's domestic investment rate is an opportunity to strengthen the foundations – and resilience – of our economy into the future. But it is not without trade-offs.
It will require an orientation of economic policy that both enables higher investment and ensures that it happens in a sustainable – and sustained – manner.
The current state of the economy
Before I turn to investment specifically, let me focus on where the Irish economy is now.
In the context of what has been an unprecedent level of global policy uncertainty and an acceleration of geopolitical shifts, the economy has demonstrated remarkable resilience.
Overall, we expect the domestic economy – based on modified national income (GNI*) – to have grown by around 4.8% in 2025, a similar rate to 2024.