Irish party on in Euro Christmas spending league

IRISH families will be Europe’s biggest Christmas spenders this year, splashing out €1,430 each on presents, food and nights out — a national total of €3.5 billion.

New figures show €720 will be spent per household on presents, €431 on food and €279 on socialising, an increase of 6.9% on last year’s €1,339.

But compared to last year families will be spending far less on presents and much more on food: the amount spent on nights out will remain almost static. Last year, the average Irish family spent €824 on presents — a national Santa’s sack worth just over €2bn.

To the potential distress of children across Ireland, this year’s predicted expenditure on presents is expected to drop €104 per family to €720.

Based on figures supplied by accountants Deloitte, the presents’ bill for Ireland’s 2.7 million households will be around €1.8bn.

Deloitte also carried out a survey of Christmas lists and found that the nation’s under-12s are hoping to find action figures, toy dolls and computer games under the tree this year.

Teenagers, meanwhile, want music and hard cash, as well as a portable music-player so they can listen to their top tunes.

But women hoping for their top choices of gift vouchers, books and jewellery are likely to be disappointed, the poll reveals.

Men are most likely to buy them books, music and films on DVD, fulfilling just one in three wishes on the Christmas lists from their better halves.

Asked where they were going to buy their gifts this year, shoppers nominated traditional department stores as their number one choice, followed by supermarkets and then the internet.

But men and women who like a touch of class at Christmas could well be disappointed, as just 8% of shoppers planned to buy gifts in luxury boutiques.

Expenditure on festive food is predicted to rise from last year’s figure of €251 to €431 per family this Christmas, a national feast worth €1.1bn.

Only the food-loving Cypriots will be spending more than the Irish on festive eating and drinking at €459 per family.

The Christmas spending prediction figures showed the only European countries coming close to Ireland’s overall expenditure are Cyprus on €1,188 per family and Britain on €1,007.

Last night the St Vincent de Paul (SVP) charity, which campaigns for the poor, said such high figures placed needy families under immense pressure.

SVP vice-president Professor John Monaghan said: “Children don’t realise their family is poor, yet their expectations tend to be the same as most better-off children’s.

“So the temptation for families on social welfare and low incomes is to get into debt, and our biggest concern is with the moneylenders. Their interest rates are twice that of the worst credit card.”

“We are very much aware that in cities like Dublin and Cork the big moneylenders are leafleting homes in parts of the cities telling families that money is available.

“But the interest rates are around 35% and people don’t understand that while the payments of €20 a week may sound fine they are paying a lot of money in interest.”

Illegal money-lenders charged even higher rates of interest with violent consequences for non-payers, he added.