Official figures show that retail sales grew strongly again in April, despite being held back by a drop in motor sales. More than 40% of SSIA money was released to savers at the end of April.
The Central Statistics Office said the volume of sales was up 0.6% from March, giving an annual increase of 7.5%. But the monthly increase would have been more than 3% if a 4.4% drop in motor trade sales had been excluded.
A breakdown showed that sales of hardware, paints and glass jumped by almost 16% in the month, while footwear and leather sales were up 14%. Bar sales dropped by 0.8%, however, and are now down almost 5% over the past year.
The value of sales, which takes prices into account, was also up 0.6% in the month, with an annual rise of 8.3%.
For the first quarter of 2007, the volume of retail sales was more than 7% ahead of the same period last year.
Separate CSO figures showed that average weekly earnings in the construction industry in March were up 6.3% on the same month last year.
