Drink sales in pubs on the rise again

DRINK sales in Irish pubs are on the increase after months of falling revenues following the introduction of the smoking ban.

Pubs are bucking the national trend with sales volumes in all sectors down by 1.8%, the latest Retail Sales Index published by the Central Statistics Office reveals.

Sales volumes in Irish bars jumped by 0.6% in October over September but are still down 5.7% over the last 12 months.

Publicans have been rewarded for keeping prices level, for the first time since April, with massive resistance to "rip-off Ireland" evident in the figures with consumers keeping their money in their pockets rather than paying inflated prices.

Davy Stockbroker's economist Robbie Kelleher and Rossa White, in a note to clients, advised against reading too much into monthly changes in what they described as the volatile retail sales index.

"The ex-garages index is a little less volatile. Here, sales dipped by 0.1% in October, having increased 0.1% the previous month.

In the January-October period, the volume of aggregate retail sales was 2.8% higher than in the corresponding period in 2003. Ex-garages, sales also increased by 2.8%.

"Bar sales increased 0.6% in both value and volume in October.

"Since the smoking ban came in, the value of sales in bars has decreased 5.4%. The volume sold is down 7.4%," they said.