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Saturday, September 23, 2006 :
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Irish spend more on alcohol than food
IRISH people spend more on alcohol than on food. In 2005, Irish consumers splurged €6,404 million on alcohol and €5,698m on food, excluding meals out.
These are the latest figures complied by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) which yesterday released the National Income and Expenditure report for 2005.
In constant prices, the gross domestic product climbed 5.5% between 2004 and 2005.
This year the GDP reached €161,163m, which grew from €147,569m, the previous year.
The growth in gross national product was lower than predicted at 5.3%.
Farm incomes increased by over 17% and non agricultural incomes increased by nearly 9% in 2005.
While gross national disposable income increased 9.4%, personal expenditure caught up by increasing by nearly 8%. Government spending increased 10.4%.
However the report notes that when price rises are discounted, the real increases are 6.6% for personal spending and 4.6% for Government expenditure.
The value of investment in construction and capital equipment surged ahead by over 20%. This represents an increase of nearly 13% in volume terms. The value of stocks rose 166m in constant prices.
The value of exports increased 5.6% last year, according to the report, while export prices increased 1.7% and export volumes increased 3.9%.
Values of imports rose 8.3% which represented a 1.7% increase in price and a 6.5% in volume.
In 2005 there was €131,001m worth of goods and services exported from these shores whilst €110,553m worth of imports came from abroad.
The current account deficit last year was 4,200m.
Last year saw €1,933m spent on tobacco. This was an increase on 2004 figures of €1,847m and a significant decrease on the €2,049m spend in a 2003.
Spending on recreation, entertainment and education steadily grew from €5,135m in 2000 to €7,746m last year.
An increase of nearly €900m was spent on fuel and power in the last five years, which works out at an average of €180m a year increase.
Net national product at factor cost rose by 8.6% in 2005 to €100,254m, equivalent to €24,271 per head of population.
Government figures from 2004, (the 2005 figures have not been released yet) showed spending of €1,765m on child benefit, €148m in redundancy payments and €984m in retirement pensions.
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