Ireland's domestic economy fell into a technical recession in the final quarter of 2022, Central Statistics Office data showed on Friday, but still grew by 8.2% for the year as a whole while the broader but unreliable measure of GDP powered further ahead.

With Ireland's large multinational sector often distorting gross domestic product (GDP), officials prefer to use modified domestic demand to gauge the strength of the economy and it fell 1.3% quarter-on-quarter, following a 1.1% decline in the third quarter.

Modified domestic demand, which strips out some of the ways multinational activity can inflate economic activity, was still much higher in 2022 than in 2021 due to strong investment-led growth in the first half.

GDP growth slowed to 0.3% quarter-on-quarter from October to December, following growth of 2.8% in the previous three months, and stood 12% higher than in 2021 for the year as a whole. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin Editing by Christina Fincher)