EY, a global professional services company, has reported a 9.5% revenue growth in Ireland, reaching €772 million for the financial period ending June 2024, based on the most recent figures. The company’s revenue generated in the Republic, which includes earnings from its legal branch, accounted for €726.6 million of the total. According to its transparency report, almost a third of this, 27%, was generated by statutory audit services and just below €500 million came from work for clients outside the auditing sector.
In Ireland, EY holds the title of the largest Big Four firm, its counterparts being PwC, KPMG, and Deloitte. Setting ambitious targets, the firm’s managing director, Frank O’Keeffe, anticipates “double-digit” revenue growth for the coming year, aspiring to reach an annual income of €1 billion by 2027. He expressed confidence in their progress, stating that all business sectors are performing strongly.
Mr. O’Keeffe reported a robust beginning to the current fiscal period, noting an uptick in merger and acquisition activities, which are shifting from discussions to actual commitments. Despite the slowdown, he believes in the renewed faith in capital markets and foresees growth, albeit slower than the 2021-2022 boom. He highlighted the heightened confidence of organisations in pursuing transformative projects within their consulting business and the increased activity within their tax and law divisions amid geopolitical events and supply chain complexities.
EY’s external audit arm has seen tremendous growth in recent years, propelling the growth in 2024 and promising to continue doing so in 2025. The pipeline for this area of the business remains strong. He mentioned that EY performed strongly across all its four service lines in the last year – tax and law, audit, consulting, and strategy and transactions. This performance has been driven by increased client demand across all of EY’s local branches in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Galway, Limerick, and Waterford.
According to Mr O’Keeffe, the political climate within which his company operates poses challenges. Nonetheless, he maintains a positive perspective, predicting that, given a stable outcome for the US Presidential and upcoming local elections before 2024 concludes, the economy of Ireland will remain robust. EY, his firm, had 5,196 employees on its payroll at the end of June 2024. During that year, the company hired 1,415 individuals across the entire island. In addition, 1,804 workers received promotions. On a worldwide scale, in the complete fiscal year of 2024, EY declared an income of $51.2 billion.