- Ireland's Competitiveness Challenge 2025
- The Chair presents to the second annual Competitiveness Summit of Ministers hosted by the Taoiseach
- Bulletin 25-3: The Competitiveness Implications of Post-Pandemic Learning Losses
- Bulletin 25-2: Re-estimating Ireland’s International Competitiveness Performance
- Retrospective Review, 2020-2023
- NCPC's South-East Regional Seminar
- Bulletin 25-1 Developments in Ireland's National Productivity Statistics
- The Government Response to Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2024
- Budget 2025 and Competitiveness: Investing in Ireland’s Future Prosperity
- NCPC Chair attends the Competitiveness Summit
- Ireland's Competitiveness Challenge 2024
- Bulletin 24-4 IMD World Competitiveness Rankings
- Bulletin 24-3 Competitiveness and the Housing Market in Ireland
- NCPC's Mid-West Regional Seminar
- NCPC Welcomes DETE-ESRI Joint Economic Research Programme Seminar
- Bulletin 24-2 Ireland’s Competitiveness and Productivity Framework
- ESRI Publish Working Paper of DETE ESRI Joint Research Programme
- Bulletin 24-1 Re-estimating Ireland’s International Innovation Performance
Ireland's Competitiveness Challenge 2025
The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC) is pleased to publish Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2025 report.
This year, the Council has brought forward the publication of the Challenge report, with a view to providing an important input into the Action Plan on Competitiveness and Productivity, which is due to be published over the coming weeks. The high-level details from the Challenge report were presented on 7th July to the Competitiveness Summit of Minsters.
The Challenge 2025 report sets out a range of key challenges facing Ireland’s economy, particularly over the medium to long-term. The Council places a clear emphasis on addressing those challenges that come within domestic control (in a sequenced and strategic way). The key challenges identified include addressing the high and rising cost of doing business – particularly those costs where Government has a role to play – in addition to prioritising investment in competitiveness and productivity-enhancing reforms, taking immediate action to address infrastructural deficits, and preparing the workforce of the future by fostering a stronger culture of continuous learning.
The Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2025 report makes 19 targeted and actionable recommendations to Government across broad medium and long-term strategic challenges, that are aimed at enhancing Ireland’s competitiveness and productivity performance. These strategic challenges are:
- Exercise restraint in fiscal policy by adhering to the spending rule and prioritising investment in competitiveness and productivity-enhancing reforms
- Continue to utilise the European Union strategies which emphasise competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy
- Address issues relating to the cost of doing business, which remains a longstanding challenge to Ireland’s business environment
- Take immediate action towards addressing infrastructural deficits
- Prepare the workforce of the future by fostering a stronger culture of continuous learning
- Invest in digitalisation and advanced technologies to improve productivity, particularly within domestic enterprises.
The full report and the press release can be accessed below.

The report sets out a range of key challenges facing Ireland’s economy, particularly over the medium to long-term. The Council places a clear emphasis on addressing those challenges that come within domestic control (in a sequenced and stra...

The Chair of the NCPC Dr. Frances Ruane attended the second annual Competitiveness Summit which took place today, 7th of July 2025, in Government Buildings. Dr. Ruane emphasised the need for Ireland to take account of global uncertainty and...

The NCPC is pleased to publish Bulletin 25-3 on The Competitiveness Implications of Post-Pandemic Learning Losses. This Bulletin utilises OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data to analyse the impact of COVID-19-rela...

The NCPC is pleased to publish Bulletin 25-2 on Re-estimating Ireland’s International Competitiveness Performance. This Bulletin explores how Ireland’s performance in the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking 2024 is affected when selected indi...

The Retrospective Review assesses the progress made in implementing past recommendations and providing a comprehensive evaluation of Government responses between 2020 and 2023. The findings highlight meaningful progress, with the Government...

The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC) in conjunction with South-East Chambers and South East Technological University organised a regional seminar on the 2nd of April 2025. The theme of the Seminar was Regional Compet...

The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council is pleased to publish Bulletin 25-1 Developments in Ireland's National Productivity Statistics which provides an overview of the latest productivity statistics published by the CSO (Apri...

This is the fifth formal response issued by Government to the Competitiveness Challenge reports published annually by the Council. The Government recognises the importance and value of the Council’s ongoing work in assessing Ireland’s com...

Whilst it is inevitable that a given Budget will be characterised by a focus on immediate priorities, it also plays a significant role in shaping our broader fiscal approach, and so the objective of this paper is to specifically highlight t...

The Summit was hosted by the Taoiseach and featured discussions on Ireland’s current and future competitiveness challenges we face as a country. The Summit was attended by the relevant Ministers along with representatives of IDA Ireland and...