dublin dec 2 reuters  irelands domestic economy shrank by 11 quarteronquarter from july to september following the strong investment driven growth of 47 in the second quarter of the year data from the central statistics office showed on friday modified domestic demand mdd which strips out some of the ways irelands large multinationals distorts economic activity was still up 101 for the first nine months of 2022 and the cso said the quarterly decline was mainly due to the strong second quarter base irelands finance ministrys current forecast is for growth of 77 for 2022 as a whole most recent economic data have pointed to a softening of activity in the second half of the year and the finance ministry had expected rising inflation to tip consumer spending into negative territory in the third and fourth quarters fridays data showed that personal spending on goods and services managed to eke out quarterly growth of 03 though that was well down on the 22 in the second quarter the finance ministry slashed its forecast for 2023 modified domestic demand to 12 in september gross domestic product gdp a broader measure of economic activity grew by 23 on the quarter and was 109 higher yearonyear the government has long cautioned against using this measure as it is routinely inflated by multinational activity while economic activity increased for many sectors across the economy the overall picture was mixed cso assistant director general jennifer banim said in a statement pointing to very strong agriculture quarterly growth and declines in the professional and financial services sectors reporting by padraic halpin editing by alex richardson and toby chopra