Figures for January and February of this year show that company closures are up 6% on the same period in 2011.

This continues the trend of a yearly increase in the number of company closures recorded in Ireland since 2007.

These increases have noticeably reduced the rate of expansion of the economy as the below table highlights...

Irish Companies - Start-Ups v Closures

table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" width="300"> Year Start-Ups Closures Growth % 2007 18,808 8,573 119% 2008 14,812 10,771 38% 2009 13,418 11,698 15% 2010 14,113 12,830 10% 2011 14,663 14,574 1%

...as you can see, Irish company start-ups were almost 120% more prevalent than closures in 2007. Even when the effects of the recession started to be felt the following year, we saw start-ups 38% ahead of closures.

Last year saw this gap fall to just 1% with only 89 more new companies compared to closures.

In keeping with our previous findings, companies aged between 2 - 6 years old make up 40% of these closures.

Unsurprisingly, the Construction industry has suffered most during this 5 Year period with the industry contracting by 12%. The manufacturing sector has seen a decline of 8%.