The household saving rate rose from 13.0% at the end of 2023 to 15.0% in the first three months of 2024.
The household saving rate here moved closer to that of the Euro area more widely, where it is 15.3%.
Having had a higher saving rate during the pandemic, saving levels in Ireland were at or slightly below the Eurozone in more recent quarters.
The unadjusted saving rate was 18.97% as households saved €8.3bn in Q1 2024. This was saved as investment in new homes, bank deposits, and other assets.
For the economy as a whole Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined compared with Q1 2023, but this mainly affected foreign-controlled non-financial corporations. Better measures of the domestic economy such as Gross National Income (GNI) were up.
The Irish economy had a positive current account balance of €14.3bn in Q1 2024, an increase on last year's first quarter.
Ireland was a net lender to the rest of the world of €1.9bn, down on Q1 2023 owing largely to higher imports of non-produced assets (such as trademarks and marketing assets).
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (31 July 2024) released the Institutional Sector Accounts Non-Financial for Quarter 1 (Q1) 2024.
Commenting on the release, Peter Culhane, Statistician in the National Accounts Analysis & Globalisation Division of the CSO, said:
"Households saved 14.99% of their income in the first three months of the year (seasonally adjusted). This is up significantly on the previous quarter when it was 13.00%.
The expanding numbers of people working, higher wages, and higher income on assets such as pension funds are driving up household income. Meanwhile consumption is also going up, albeit more slowly, due to higher volumes as well as higher prices.
Overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was lower in the first quarter of this year than in Q1 2023, even before adjusting for inflation. This was due primarily to reduced 'contract manufacturing' by large foreign-controlled non-financial corporations, but at the same time, more investment income (dividends and reinvested earnings) flowed into the corporate sector from abroad. These two items largely account for the changes in the key indicators for our transactions with the rest of the world: a significant decline in net exports, but an increase in our current account balance. There were also large imports of non-produced assets such as trademarks, which reduced our net lending to the rest of the world.
The Government sector had a surplus of €521m in Q1 2024, down from a surplus of €665m in the equivalent quarter of 2023. Higher receipts of VAT-type taxes on products drove growth on the income side of the account, while on the expenditure side, social protection payments and final consumption (provision of services) were both significantly higher."