New figures show that consumer spending continued to weaken in April, with the volume of retail sales down 0.9% compared with March.
The Central Statistics Office figures show the monthly fall was not as big as in the previous two months, but it brought the annual decrease in April to 3.2%, compared with 2% in March.
This is the sharpest annual fall in retail sales for five years and continues a trend that has been in place since last October. The decline in retail sales is consistent with the sharp deterioration in VAT receipts reported by the Department of Finance last week.
The monthly fall would have been even worse except for motor sales, which showed a 3.6% monthly increase. This category includes repairs and petrol station forecourt sales as well as cars.
Other areas showed sharp falls, with department store sales down 6.3%, footwear and leather down 11.8% and bar sales falling 2.2%. Hardware, paints and glass sales dropped 7.6%, but sales of furniture and lighting rose by 11.6%.
The value of sales, which takes prices into account, showed an annual increase of 0.1%, but fell 0.9% in the month.
