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Leah Farrell/Rollingnews.ie

Irish households to spend an average of €2,654 in the run up to Christmas

Retail Ireland said that cross-border shopping and online shopping from foreign retailers is a big worry for Irish outlets this year.

BUSINESS GROUP RETAIL Ireland has said it expects Irish households to spend an average of €2,654 in shops this month, €870 more than any other month this year.

As a whole, it expects us to spend around €4.5 billion over the Christmas period, which is up from €4.4 billion in 2016.

However, retailers fear that they may lose out due to the number of people shopping online with non-Irish websites and crossing the border to Northern Ireland to do their shopping.

For supermarkets and department stores, it expects the week beginning 18 December to be a “make or break” week, with Christmas Day falling on a Monday.

With shopping days such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Retail Ireland said there is an overall trend towards lower prices, with consumer goods prices falling 2.2% in the first ten months of the year.

Gross disposable income is also up, around 5.4% in the first half of the year.

retail ireland Retail Ireland Retail Ireland

Statistics from the Central Bank, meanwhile, said that total e-commerce spend is likely to exceed €16 billion by the end of the year, which would be close to a 50% increase since 2015.

Retail Ireland director Thomas Burke said: “Now that the uncertain political environment of recent days has passed, retailers are looking forward to the approaching Christmas period with renewed optimism. Rising disposable incomes, more people at work, and falling prices will raise consumer spirits and enable greater spending power over the busy Christmas period.

The growing migration by Irish consumers online over recent months is creating a challenge for Irish retailers. Local traders have to date been unable to stem the flow of close to 75% of online consumer spending that currently leaves these shores.
Irish retailers are reacting however, and the online consumer offer is stronger than at any point in times past. Irish retailers also continue to focus on getting their instore activity right in these crucial trading weeks and will be seeking to capitalise upon an increasing willingness on the part of consumers to spend their greater levels of disposable income.

The cross-border shopping fears, from Irish retailer’s perspective, come on the back of new data from AA Ireland which says that one in ten people are planning a Christmas shopping trip in Northern Ireland.

Its director of consumer affairs Conor Faughnan said: “While the euro is still performing strongly against the Pound Sterling, the immediate aftermath of Brexit may have encouraged more people to make the journey last year despite the transport costs involved in doing so often negating any savings you may make.”

Read: How civil war in the Ukraine and a late frost in Germany affects a Christmas tree grower in Wicklow

Read: DSPCA inundated with unwanted pets and it’s still over three weeks until Christmas

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    Mute I invented the @
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    Oct 9th 2018, 7:26 AM

    Sure. The same Bellingcat that’s run by Eliot Higgins, the same Eliot Higgins that’s a fellow of the Atlantic Council….

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    Mute Philip Exley
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    Oct 9th 2018, 7:49 AM

    @I invented the @: ahh, in the face of all the evidence that keeps tumbling out and in the face of the utterly ludicrous sightseeing cover story with which the Russians insulted everyone’s intelligence…..you choose to believe it’s a frame up.
    I hope you get a good exchange rate for your roubles.

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    Mute Donnacha Bhoicaire
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    Oct 9th 2018, 8:29 AM

    @I invented the @: dont be talking nonsense now. Caught out end of…

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:18 AM

    @I invented the @: one thing is for certain, in that if it was a Russian operation the last people they would have used would have been Russians. If you believe this garbage from Bellingcat I feel sorry for you.

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    Mute Boyne Sharky
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    Oct 9th 2018, 10:29 AM

    @I invented the @: So, if I understand your logic, a truth can’t be considered a truth unless… what exactly?

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    Mute Philip Exley
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    Oct 9th 2018, 2:15 PM

    @Patrick J. O’Rourke: they should clearly consider recruiting idiots like you then. I assume you’re not Russian?

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    Mute Mark Jones
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    Oct 9th 2018, 7:38 AM

    Maybe it was the Russians maybe it wasn’t, who cares. It’s not like MI5 or the CIA don’t send assassin’s into other countries to murder people. Pretty sick of all this “The big bad Russians” stuff at this stage.

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    Mute Noel James Doherty
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    Oct 9th 2018, 8:20 AM

    @Mark Jones: all the big boy’s have blood on they’re hands down through the year’s, no more so than the UN & their late intervention in the Balkans not so long ago. It was these lads surely, but what’s going to happen now? An elite crack group of operatives into Russia to get these two, pfft not a hope

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    Mute Liam O’Conchubhair
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:12 AM

    @Mark Jones: that’s blatant whataboutism, you’re deflecting criticism of Russia by bringing up the CIA and MI5

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:36 AM

    @Mark Jones: They sent spies into the IRA to join the IRA and used this to kill British soldiers with the blessing of the head of the IRA and other times without. In British intelligence even their own citizens are expendable for a result? Have people forgotten the Gilford 4 or Birmingham 6 or the Monaghan and Dublin bombings or even their shoot to kill policies? Even the British Intelligence trained the CIA in torture as well as created the term “Black Propaganda”.

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:43 AM

    @Liam O’Conchubhair: Remember that it was the CIA who trained and put into power Bin Laden, the Taliban, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Pinochet, the birth of Isis and the replacement of 50 so called Communist South American governments after WW2. They also created the Iran mess in the mid 1950′s in Iran that has created the Iran of today. How many times have they tried to kill Castro and how many times has the CIA been caught working with the mafia in the US as well as drug running?

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    Mute Seán Ó Briain
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    Oct 9th 2018, 8:33 AM

    Watch all the Putinbots swarm here trying to spread doubt and lies. They’ll attack the source or deflect and say it doesn’t matter. It does matter. A highly dangerous poison was used which killed and innocent woman. If it happened in Ireland wed think differently.

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    Mute Donal Desmond
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    Oct 9th 2018, 1:32 PM

    @Seán Ó Briain: If it had happened in Ireland nothing would have been done. Since time began intelligence services from all countries have used whatever methods nessecery to protect their country. C.I A., British intelligence, K.G.B. have been responsible for thousands of deaths for years.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Oct 9th 2018, 10:49 PM

    @Seán Ó Briain:
    Although it’s notable that as facts have been uncovered and the “Russia didn’t do it” line has become untenable, the narrative for many of them has shifted to “Well so what if Russia did it, every government does it”…..

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    Mute mattoid
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    Oct 9th 2018, 10:52 PM

    Sometimes it’s hard to tell the Putinbots apart from the useful idiots on here.
    Some are deliberately spreading disinformation and some are just deluded, but they sound much the same in practice…

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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:40 AM

    Bellingcat lol. Might as well be reporting the ‘Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’.

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    Mute Diaspora'd
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    Oct 9th 2018, 2:29 PM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: apart Putin himself announcing it was a GRU operation what source or agency’s evidence would you believe?

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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Oct 9th 2018, 3:07 PM

    @Diaspora’d: not one that was directly set up for propaganda purposes might be a start.

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:30 AM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: Bell*ndcat as some call him?

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    Mute Diaspora'd
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    Oct 10th 2018, 1:45 AM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: I take it then none apart from Putin himself would convince you..

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    Mute Liam O’Conchubhair
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    Oct 9th 2018, 9:17 AM

    All the deflection and whataboutism done by commenters here. Ridiculous.

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    Mute Barry O Toole
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    Oct 9th 2018, 12:56 PM

    @Liam O’Conchubhair: dont think its deflection liam people are merely questioning elements of this a lot of it doesnt add up

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    Mute Philip Exley
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    Oct 9th 2018, 2:58 PM

    @Barry O Toole:
    Answer me this…
    Were the Skripals attacked?
    Did another innocent individual die?
    Were two Russians filmed visiting the area?
    Do you think they flew all the way from Moscow to see Salisbury cathedral?
    Do you think, having gone all that way they went back to London on the first trip because it was too slushy in Salisbury (clue..it wasn’t).
    If you think it doesn’t add up because they were so amateurish I’d say this. They know full well that once they were back in Russia they’d be untouchable and that they could rely on gullible fools to give credence to their ridiculous protestations of innocence and cries of “there’s no evidence” in the face of….all the evidence.
    Do you also believe the Russians just kicked out of Holland were innocent? Maybe they’d gone to have an extended look at the tulips?

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    Mute Barry O Toole
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    Oct 9th 2018, 5:44 PM

    I am sceptical of the narrative being peddled thats all there are many actors in this drama who knows what the truth is

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    Mute Mark Mc Steve
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    Oct 9th 2018, 1:36 PM

    Who actually believes this ha

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Oct 10th 2018, 12:26 AM

    How and why was it Bellingcat who discovered this and no one else as in government bodies???

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    Mute mattoid
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    Oct 10th 2018, 8:38 AM

    @TamuMassif2019:
    What makes you think government bodies didn’t know it from a relatively early stage?

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