The problem isn't that the rating for Ireland went down when the economic indicators did, it's that HF claim the rating is a predictor of economic performance, without a shred of evidence.

The way I see it, if Ireland hadn't pinned the taxpayer with the losses, their economic freedom would be higher, and their economic growth would probably be better. Certainly Iceland has fared better than Ireland in terms of economic growth since the 2008 crash - though Iceland appears further down the list of Economic Freedom. If Ireland had acted differently, it would likely have had better growth, and would be higher in the list as in the past. I think this case is fine in terms of the methodology.

You're not seeing the wood for the trees. Ireland is just one example among many where it is a poor predictor of growth. I could pick out China, India, Brazil (and complain about the weighting given to small countries), or just point at...all of the data:

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Freedom1996.gif

It's comically bad. Random things like penis size correlate better with economic growth http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5008876deab8ea62620...

(that's from a real paper from the Helsinki Center of Economic Research, btw, though it's obviously tongue in cheek)

Even its correlation with GDP is pretty shaky: http://www.heritage.org/index/book/images/in-2014-chapter-1-...

This is nothing but a list to write press releases around. There is no science to it, and we shouldn't take it any more seriously than articles about the mathematical formula for the perfect sandwich.