Irish consumer sentiment climbed unexpectedly during September

FALLING oil prices, bringing forward the budget and job wins by the IDA all helped to push consumer sentiment up in September for a second successive month.

The increase in the IIB/ESRI Consumer Sentiment Index to 45.0 from 43.4 in August was marginal and suggests consumers’ confidence is still at low.

IIB chief economist Austin Hughes said the rise was a surprise and pointed out that the survey was compiled before the recent turmoil in financial markets.