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SPENDING ON CONSUMER products is set to hit record levels in Ireland this year, according to the Central Bank.
The regulator’s latest quarterly bulletin indicates that the spending power of Irish citizens is flourishing due to a strong jobs market and wage competition.
Meanwhile, revised upward forecasts suggest that the economy is set to grow by 4.8% this year and 4.2% in 2019, up slightly from the bank’s previous bulletin.
Irish consumer spending will pass the €100 billion mark, up 2.9%, according to the bank’s predictions to €103.5 billion, a higher peak than that seen before the economic crash bit hard in 2008, indicating high levels of consumer confidence.
Meanwhile, a further 99,000 people are expected to leave the live register and be in work by the end of next year, with wages set to rise in tandem per employee by 3.3% on average for 2018 and 2019.
Unemployment is expected to average at 4.8% in 2019, down from the 5.6% predicted for this year.
Inflation is set to rise slightly from 0.8% to 0.9% in 2019.
A new way for forecasting housing completions will see 23,500 units constructed in 2018, rising to 28,500 next year, the report predicts.
It isn’t all good news however, with the Central Bank warning that Donald Trump’s controversial US tax reform, coupled with possible changes to the taxation of online and digital services and the risk of international protectionism, in the run-up to Brexit for example, capable of having a negative influence on the otherwise thriving economy.
“While today’s forecasts are positive, we have to remember that the highly open and therefore volatile nature of the Irish economy means we can take nothing for granted,” said the Central Bank’s director of economics and statistics Mark Cassidy.
We have extensive links to other economies through trade, technology and finance and so unexpected events could see the growth in our economy thrown off course.
He warned that while Brexit has caused “relatively little pain” thus far to Ireland’s finances, prudence dictates that the Central Bank plan for a time when things have taken a turn for the worse.
“Any obstacles to the way the UK currently trades with the EU is likely to generate a reduction in long-term living standards in Ireland, reduce the range of imported goods available to Irish consumers and make it more difficult for domestic firms to export their goods,” Cassidy added.
You can read the report in full here
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Im saving my penneys for the next crash. No point looking at a house until then
@Irish Political GIF:
Good for you but you will probably need to save the full price. There was lots of people who wanted to buy when the prices collapsed the last time but no one could get a loan.
I’ve noticed the 100 bags are getting smaller alright. Id safely say the good old greedy boom times are back!
@Irish Political GIF: Well that’s how the vulture capitalists do it. to bail out governments like FG. then cause a bigger problem by fire selling ireland. instead of public works scheme and waiting untill thing get better.
@P.J. Nolan: I bought in 2009 as we weren’t approved for a mortgage in 2006 – thank god for that ! Got house for half the price
The gov propaganda machine is out in full force this morning, a whole list of articles on gov giveaways and what their gonna do, followed by the leprechaun economics state finance figures!
@Adrian: how is the central bank report on facts and global guesstimates the Irish governments propaganda machine?
@Adrian: have you stepped outside the door recently. Gone shopping in town? Driven on the roads. The economy is booming and it’s not a credit fuelled boom. Wake up, go out and get a job and stop moaning. You losers (all 10 of you) have lost your chance.
@Adrian: You’re tin foil hat seems a lot title loose there fella.
@Darren Norris: It certainly is leprechaun economics if they are including aircraft leasing and other such distortions in their economy growth forecasts. This article does not make that clear.
@Adrian: I thought the government propaganda machine was clothed down….sorry.
@joe: depends Where you are,Waterford is not showing any signs of any recovery.
The top 10% is spending most of it…….
@Peadar Ó Gréacháin: be a bit worrying if they didn’t
@Darren Norris: You missed his point!
The good times are back. Bank has offered me an increased overdraft. My credit card company will give me a much higher limit, scarily high and mortgage broker told me I can get a buy to let mortgage loan on an interest only basis.
Now for a massive credit bubble.
And I declined the Bank OD offer, held to my credit card limit and told the mortgage broker there was no value to be obtained in now investing in buy to lets.
Not all of us will cave in to the blandishments of credit.
Down with the creditocracy.
@Michael Lang: Yup. The banks are out there putting guns to people’s heads, making them borrow what they don’t have, AGAIN.
@Michael Lang: IF people borrow then they should be smart enough to know the risks.. Part of the property bubble at the moment is the fact 25,000 homeowners are not vacated and have not paid any mortgage in over 2 years.
Dont borrow….you are not being forced into it.
I’d love to hear from David McWilliams. Smart man couldn’t have got it more spot on the last time.
@David Smith: “David McWilliams’ brilliant survey of Ireland today is a celebration of success. He takes us to Deckland, that suburban state of mind where you’ll find the Kells Angels, those out-of-town commuters who are the cutting edge of the new prosperity. He introduces the HiCos – Hiberno-Cosmopolitans – the elite whose distance from Deckland is measured in their cool sophistication, their ability to feel at home equally on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and on Hill 16. “The Pope’s Children” is an antidote to the endless pessimism of the Commentariat, official Ireland’s gloomy opinion mongers, forever seeing a glass half empty that is in fact three-quarters full. There is a vast surge of ambition, new money, optimism and hope out there. That’s the real story: “The Pope’s Children” tells it – and tells it with style.”
The Blurb from his 2005 book, as cut and pasted from Amazon.
@David Smith: he did. But so will I the economy will crash. There i said it, now I’m an economic genius because it will definitely happen. It’s easy to predict certainties. This is how economic cycles work!
In the words of Tommy Tiernan if you can’t spend money in the good times then THEY’RE NOT THE GOOD TIMES
@League of shadows: hoard in the good times, spend in the bad times. EG: house prices etc….
@League of shadows: They’re the ‘in preparation for the bad times’ times
Most of which is no doubt based on credit. Loan now, pay back later – what could possibly go wrong?
@Shakka1244: as the UK faces a massive consumer credit crisis for car loans, home makeovers and luxury purchases.
The creditocracy depends on consumers to borrow and to borrow deeply.
@Shakka1244: I don’t think there’s near as much personal credit as there was back in the boom. But I would question the numbers used in the report. 103bn is not near the same value as 103bn back in 2008. Groceries may have fallen in price due to efficiencies and cheaper methods of packaging but everything else is going up it seems! So we have not yet reached 2008 level despite the report. Maybe credit will get us there though ;)
Isn’t there a higher population contributing to the spending now than in 2008 with higher prices overall?
@Jointheclubtoo: shhh, your not supposed to know that, you’re ruining it!
Click bait headline that draws attention to the least credible part of the report. Typical copy & paste reporting really. Mr Brennan if you want to ever be a credible journalist yourself how about dissecting the information a little.
Example: the high watermark is based on an absolute monetary value! Ridiculous to suggest that €103bn is the same today as it was in 2008 with inflation and currency debasement that’s happened since. The euro is simply not worth as much as it was in real terms (and comparing the rates is useless as all the major currencies have fallen in lock-step). One needs to analyse the relationship of currency to the price of goods themselves. I guess thats beyond the Journalist wannabes on the journal and more for the likes of the FT.
So we have not reached 2008 level.
So around €25,000 each. I don’t feel so bad about my spending now.
Come home @Dave_Doyle, the boom is back.
@Pat Bateman: the tiger is roaring
Looks like they only stopped short of declaring us all multi millionaires! Plus a new way of forecasting house completions! Followed by the inevitable threats to their utopian forecasting, Trump, Brexit, (basically anyone else but the Irish gov and central bank, what state bankruptcy!!???)
Funny that,I’m a nurse and I’m still struggling
Yep, it’s seems people have gone mad again, we’ve clearly learned nothing and the odd thing is the complete ignorance of where we were. Just recently it’s been admitted the mortgage arrears crisis has not changed. If we were to believe the horrendous stories regarding personal debt, you have to ask have people suddenly found pots of gold? Have they had massive wage increases, have indeed people had their debts mysteriously wiped? I refuse to believe legacy debts have been cleared in such a short amount of time.
What a load of tripe.
Unless everyone is online.
Retail is on its knees in this country.
I’ve never known it to be this bad.
All credit too
All we need now if FF back at the wheel. Sure what could go wrong?
I think this is just an attempt by the gov and the central bank to try and get people to spend more money so they can get their hands on it through all their various taxes. Their water tax didn’t work, and there is only so far they can increase all the different insurance prices, they need to find other ways to get their hands on people’s money and trying to fool the people into thinking the boom times are back is a way they can do that. So their story is great times but they’re telling us they have to be careful and prudent because they don’t want the teachers etc protesting for higher pay at the same time! It’s an idiotic country we’re living in, run by an idiotic gov.
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