Private Limited Company Incorporation figures for Ireland have changed dramatically in the past number of years, mainly due to the recession which impacted figures published in 2009. The number of companies on the register that year was 160,226, and in 2009, 13,321 companies were incorporated. In 
the previous year 2008, 14,723 companies were incorporated, a drop on the previous year of 1402 Private Limited companies.
2010 saw an increase in the number of private limited companies forming to 14013, an improvement of 692. Probably the most encouraging news are the figures for 2011 which were made available by the CRO recently. There were 14,615 Limited companies registered in Ireland in 2011 an increase on 2010 from 14,013 and 185,181 companies were on the live register at the end of 2010 excluding companies in the course of liquidation.
The number of business names registered in 2009 and 2008 shows a similar pattern. In 2009 25,764 business names were registered, and this number improved to 28,118 in 2010. From 2007 to 2008 however, there was a dramatic fall in the number of business names registered from approx 28,400 to approx 26,600.
As we know the recession started to hit in the summer of 2008 which explains these figures. 2009 saw a further dramatic drop in the number of business names registered, falling to approximately 25,750. Again 2010 saw a rally in the numbers, and the business name registrations came back to 2007 levels. This can be explained partly by the number of new business being started by people being made redundant from late 2008.