Ireland Country Overview

According to PHILOSOPHYNEARBY, Ireland is a member country of the European Union, its capital is the city of Dublin. The nation is framed on the island of Ireland, located in northwestern Europe, forming part of the British archipelago, being the second island in extension of it, it is the third island in Europe, after Great Britain and Iceland, and the twentieth in the world.

Article four of the Constitution of Ireland, which was adopted in 1937, says that “the name of the state is Éire, or in English, Ireland.” For all official purposes, including international relations and other legal documents, the Irish government uses the name Ireland, in addition to using Éire for documents written in Irish.

The institutions of the European Union follow the same system since Irish became an official language on January 1, 2007 and call the State Éire – Ireland, just like the official names they use for the Irish passport.

The name of the island has its origin in the old Irish Ériu (in modern Irish Éire), with the addition of the Germanic term land. Ériu, from Proto-Celtic * Īwerjū (which also generated the Welsh Iwerd, Irish Sea), originally meant fat, in the sense of fertility.

The Celts called the Irish population Éire, so the land began to be called the land of Éire or Éireland, whose derivation ended up being Ireland.

Today, the official name of the state is Ireland, Ireland (in English) and Éire (in Irish). Republic of Ireland, Republic of Ireland or Poblacht na hÉireann is the writing of the official text.

Government and politics

The State is a republic with a parliamentary system of government. The President of Ireland, who serves as Head of State, is elected for a term of seven years and can be re-elected only once. The president generally has protocol functions, although he has certain constitutional powers and functions, assisted by the Council of State, an advisory body. The Taoiseach (prime minister) is appointed by the president on the nomination of parliament. The Taoiseach is normally the leader of the political party with the highest number of seats won in legislative elections. It is quite common for government coalitions to form, so there has been no single-party government since 1987-1989.

The bicameral parliament, the Oireachtas, consists of a senate, Seanad Éireann, and a lower house, Dáil Éireann. The Senate is made up of sixty members; eleven appointed by the Taoiseach, six elected by two universities, and forty-three elected by public representatives from candidate panels established on a vocational basis. The Dáil is made up of 166 members, Teachtaí Dála, elected to represent multi-member constituencies under the proportional representation system through a single transferable vote. According to the constitution, parliamentary elections must be held at least every seven years, although a lower limit may be established by law. Legally at present, it lasts for five years.

The Garda Síochána or gardai is the national police institution of the Republic of Ireland. The force is headed by the Garda Commission which is appointed by the Irish government. Its headquarters is located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin (in which the president’s mansion is also located).

On June 12, 2008, the Irish voted in a referendum in which they rejected the European Treaty of Lisbon, which has caused some controversy in the European Union.

Geography

Flora

Due to the temperate oceanic climate moderated by the Gulf Stream, the relatively warm climate and the very high humidity (reinforced by the presence of abundant peat bogs) the island is almost entirely covered by a meadow in which the clover predominates (national and traditional symbol from Irish culture), peat is formed from the decomposition of plants such as sphagnum; the Irish prairie has a deep green color which has given rise to the nickname that Ireland usually receives: “The Green Erin”. Few forests remain; Until the Modern Age most of the Éire (Ireland) was like the other British Isles covered with deciduous forests such as oak, holm oak, alder and elm; Much of these forests were cut down by the English invaders to extend sheep pastures and shipbuilding; With the Industrial Revolution, the English accentuated deforestation by using wood also as charcoal.

Fauna

Due to its isolation since the end of the Wurmiense from continental areas and even from Great Britain, the indigenous terrestrial fauna is poor: some red foxes, ferrets, hares and very few deer constitute the main cast; The scarcity of reptiles is striking, there is only one indigenous reptile, the viviparous lizard. The fauna of amphibian birds and mammals is also reduced by predation, although there are large colonies of seabirds on the coastal cliffs, such as auks, guillemots, puffins, gannets, shearwaters and paiños. Also noteworthy are the wintering populations of black and white goose, and white-faced geese. For that matter, the giant auk – the bird that first received the name of penguin, although it did not belong to the southern penguin family – was extinct in the seventeenth century.

Economy

The Republic of Ireland has had spectacular economic growth in the two decades of the period 1980-2000, where Ireland went from being a country of poverty, to one of the countries with the highest GDP per capita in the world. This was related to the arrival of innumerable global macro-companies that established their headquarters in Ireland, such as the multinational Canon or the PC World franchise.

But since 2008, this scenario has changed due to the global crisis, returning the country to a situation of predictable poverty.

The Republic of Ireland was a small, modern, trade-dependent economy with growth averaging a robust 10% over the period 1995-2000.

Agriculture, once the most important sector, is currently dwarfed by services and industry, which accounts for 38% of GNP, about 80% of exports, and employs 28% of the workforce. Despite maintaining its robust growth, mainly based on exports, the economy is also benefiting from a rise in consumption and the recovery of investments in business and construction. Ireland is one of the largest exporters of software-related goods and services in the world. In fact, much foreign software, and sometimes music, is leaked through the Republic to take advantage of the policy of not charging taxes on royalties from copyrighted property.

During the 1990s the Irish government implemented a series of economic programs designed to curb inflation, ease the tax burden, reduce government spending as a percentage of GNP, increase the skills of the workforce, and promote foreign investment. The state joined the euro initiative in January 2001 (ditching the Irish pound) along with ten other nations of the European Union. This period of high economic growth led many to baptize the Republic the Celtic Tiger.

The economy felt the impact of the slowdown in the global economy in 2001, particularly in the advanced technology export sector, where the growth rate was reduced by almost half. GNP growth remained stable and relatively robust, at a rate of around 6% in 2001 and 2002, but this was expected to fall to 2% by 2003. Since 2001, GNP growth has been much worse, one third less than past year.

Finally, the global crisis exhibited the fragility of this miracle, with a devastating balance: Ireland’s growth is negative and unemployment by the end of 2009 could reach 14 percent of the workforce (4.3, in 2006). The government has had to guarantee bank deposits for 105 billion dollars, nationalized the Anglo Irish Bank and approved a rescue of entities for about 7.5 billion dollars. Its fiscal deficit already exceeds 6 percent of GDP in 2008 and would reach 11 in 2009. The government wants to reduce the salary of public employees.