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IRISH CONSUMER sentiment has improved following a sharp drop in December prompted by ongoing uncertainty over the stability of the euro and in the wake of Budget 2012.
The latest KBC Bank Ireland/ESRI Consumer Sentiment Index rose from December’s 49.2 to 56.6 this month, pulling back two-thirds of the drop the index experienced between November and December when it fell 10.9 points. However, it said that the recovery should be treated as “modest and tentative”.
January’s data shows that while consumers retain a bleak outlook on the economy, the heightened concerns which prompted December’s dip in sentiment have apparently eased. KBC economists say that the Christmas respite in media coverage of economic issues may have helped those concerns to ease somewhat.
Consumer confidence also increased in the US and UK this month as fears over the eurozone and wider global economy eased somewhat in the new year.
Irish consumers also appear to be braced for another difficult year ahead, although about five times more people surveyed in January for the index said they expected their finances to worsen than improve, while two-thirds said they believe the Irish economy will weaken in 2012.
Both results were more positive than in December’s index, but KBC economist Austin Hughes said that the January results don’t dramatically alter the overall position:
The improvement in the sentiment survey in January doesn’t alter the picture of an Irish consumer who is nervous and cash constrained but it does suggest the intense fears seen in the December reading have eased somewhat of late.The threat of an imminent Euro break-up has faded and Irish consumers may also be a little less frightened about the impact of Budget 2012 on their household spending power.
KBC says that it has seen greater volatility in consumer sentiment levels in recent months than usual, which likely reflects what has been a particularly uncertain economic environment.
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Glad I didn’t take that vaccine
@Ford McManus: Why?
@Me Me: injecting unknown substance isn’t wise
@Ford McManus: arent you a great little gemmaroid.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: pipe down, my little obedient sheep
@Ford McManus: murderer.
@Me Me: Cause it’s killing people.
@Ford McManus: you have the blood of older, immunocompromised, vulnerable people on your hands. Same gemmaroids puffing away on vapes.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: You still wearing your muzzle?
@Ford McManus: unknown substances? These days I reckon you can’t avoid them.
Eaten a sausage or taken a pill or walked on a street beside a car etc recently?
You seem to only have an objection to the ‘unknowns’ that might actually be good.
But I will pass your views on to my dead uncle.
@Ford McManus: They are not an ‘unknown substance’.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: Aren’t you a great little sheep.
@Ford McManus: Hahaha,unknown substance…awh bless your smooth brain.XD
@Ford McManus: But it wasn’t an unknown substance. Years later…..gosh no problems!
@Me Me: Because it didn’t prevent you from getting it or from passing it on.
Got the three shots and the Wuhan Flu twice.
Open the pubs.
@Setanta O’Toole: only if you spend 10 bob on grub. Don’t ever forget the science of it all my friend
@Mick O’K: you were being ripped off Mick, i was only paying 9.
@Mick O’K: You must be harking back to the good old days of ‘ten bob a day, dinner and tay’.
@Brendan O’Brien: No singing now cos that would spread the virus!
@Setanta O’Toole: must have been the Dublin prices I was paying
@Brendan O’Brien: no Brendan back only a few short years ago when our government said if you spent x on food you could go to the pub. Remember
@Mick O’K: I didn’t think ‘ten bob’ was a thing so recently, but I stand corrected.
@John Smith: Correct. Singing expels air from your lungs with greater force than normal conversation. So the viral particles would be spread further.
Biggest experiment in human history. The injection is killing people daily. Anyone who took it has a shortened lifespan.
@Kieran Conroy: utter bollocks.
@Kieran Conroy: Total cobblers.
@Alan OConnor: Intelligent reply but then the compliant sheep aren’t known for their intelligence…
@Me Me: Amazing how before an election people are promised so much yet when a government gets elected they deliver very little. These are the same liars silly people trusted during the scamdemic. Incredible.
We also know that lockdowns didn’t work and had very little effect on Covid case numbers and deaths. Sweden didn’t lock their country down at all and they had the lowest excess mortality in all of Europe. Plus they saw no reduction in the learning abilities of their schoolchildren. Florida was another place that didn’t mandate any lockdown rules on its residents and it had the exact same death toll as New York, which had the strictest lockdown policies in all of America. Considering that Florida has the largest proportion of elderly people out of any of the 50 States, they succeeded. When you crunch the data, countries like Ireland, Australia and Japan that had strict lockdown policies only increased their life expectancy by two weeks. Lockdowns failed, I wish politicians would apologise.
Covid .. the cure was worse than the disease.. excess mortality rate following lockdown..
So the common sense approach works. ‘don’t be a dí€khead, give people some space and don’t cough on them.’ It wasn’t a lot to ask really?
Bracing for the incoming ‘what about? What about? WHAT ABOUT????’s’
@Ronan Mc: article is 10 minutes old and you’re the only one banging on about the what abouts
@Ronan Mc: Your ma’s Your da
@Ronan Mc: To be fair they asked a lot more than ‘don’t cough on them’ especially after it became apparent that it was spread through breath. Well done to the Irish public for largely sticking to it.
@Ronan Mc: wish we still had social distancing in shops & public transport! It was so nice not having someone breathing down your neck
2025, and people are still banging on about the flu.
Misinformation is going to be such a problem to grasp for the next one. Too many fall down the rabbit holes of grifters looking to profit over diseased corpses. They don’t care if you’re dead if they have your money.
We need to treat misinformation the same way we would treat pro-anna and pro-suicide talk. With severe prejudice against it.
Karl Ronan of Erris Square, Waterville, Blancardstown. Another far right homophobe convicted. Tough guy apologised on his hands and knees.
@Brieda Ní Cheese Easy Singles Drag Queen: If only the courts and justice system were as swift for victims not connected to a political party.
@Seosamh Ohuaine: aaaahhh. Poor Karl. A victim. 10 bucks he was socially housed at our expense.
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