Professional services firm EY recorded a 9.5 per cent increase in its island of Ireland revenues to €772 million for the year to the end of June 2024, according to its latest results.
Of that total, the firm posted income of €726.6 million for the year in the Republic, including revenues from its law firm. Some 27 per cent of this income was statutory audit work and just under €500 million was non-audit work for non-audit clients, its transparency report notes.
EY is the biggest Big Four firm (the others being PwC, KPMG and Deloitte) in Ireland.
Speaking to The Irish Times, EY managing partner Frank O’Keeffe said the firm was budgeting for “double digit” revenue growth this year, with the wider aim of hitting €1 billion in annual income by 2027.
“We are very much on that trajectory. We’d like to think we can strive for that,” he said, adding that all of its business lines are “doing well”.
He said the firm had made a “strong start” to the first quarter of its current financial year. “We have seen more activity in the M&A space, moving from conversations to engagements. There is more confidence now in capital markets. It’s not as fast and I don’t think it will ever go back to the heyday of 2021-2022 but that’s good. In our consulting business, there’s more confidence in organisations around transformational projects, maybe not buying all of the A-Z but definitely moving forward with budgets.
“And our tax and law business is seeing more activity, especially with geopolitical matters, supply chain and how does that all work. In our external audit business we have had a phenomenal few years. It was a fantastic growth driver in ‘24 and that’s continuing in ‘25. The pipeline is very strong.”
Mr O’Keeffe said EY last year delivered a “strong performance” across all four of our service lines – tax and law, audit, consulting and strategy and transactions – due to growing client demand. All of the EY offices – in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford – reported growth in full year 2024, he added.
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Mr O’Keeffe said the geopolitical backdrop to the firm’s work was challenging but he believes the Irish economy will continue to be “strong” if stability emerges from the US presidential election and general election here, which is due to take place before the end of 2024.
EY’s headcount at the end of June 2024 stood at 5,196 people. The firm said it recruited 1,415 people across the island during the year and promoted 1,804 people in the period.
Globally, EY reported revenues of $51.2 billion in full year 2024.
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