Point-of sale (PoS) debit card transactions grew by 5% to €2.9 billion in March, when compared with the same month last year.
New figures, from the Central Bank, also show PoS debit card sales accounted for more than half of all card transactions during the month.
Backing up this trend, credit card transactions for March were down €40m (5%) on the same month in 2017.
Moreover, the total value of debit card PoS spending was 3.4 times the value of credit card expenditure for the month.
This compares with a ratio of just 2.2 recorded in January 2015.
There were increases across all the main categories of spending on debit cards in March, but social spending had the highest increase over the year, at 15%.
Within services, utilities have increased by 22% since March 2017.
Within social, a similar trend is evident for restaurants/dining, which recorded a 23% rise.
Seventy five percent of all credit card expenditure in March was split between the services (38%) and retail (37%) sectors.
The Central Bank statistics also indicate a 10% year-on-year rise in e-commerce expenditure in March to €1.4 billion, with almost €1 billion of this spending on debit cards.
E-commerce now forms 23% of debit card spending and 50% of credit card purchases.
Total card expenditure outside Ireland averaged €497m in the three months to the end of March.
However, where the physical card is present, debit card expenditure abroad up to March 2018 amounted to €1.1 billion, an increase of 24% on the 2017 figure.
Credit card expenditure outside Ireland remained relatively stable with a 5% increase up to March, compared with the 2017 equivalent.
