Lower December retail sales disappoint

The Government will be disappointed with the release of the retail sales figures for December, which came in much lower than expected.

Anecdotal evidence had suggested that Christmas sales were well ahead of the past few years. However, latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the volume of retail sales were down 0.1% compared with November, while there was an annual decrease of 1%.

Excluding the effects of the motor trade, the volume of retail sales increased by 0.8% compared with month earlier levels, and were 0.8% ahead of December 2011 levels.