Recovery fears as retail sales dip

FEARS that an economic recovery has stalled were expressed when figures showed retail sales fell in July.

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) retail sales fell 0.1% by volume on the year in July and 0.2% from June. This is the first year-on-year drop in sales since January.

In the year in volume terms department store sales were down 7.3%, clothing, footwear and textiles were down 5.7% and pharmaceutical medical and cosmetics sales fell 10.6%.