New national and world figures for Ireland recorded by the Central Statistics Office show a rise in gross household savings in 2011.
Preliminary estimates for 2011 indicate that gross household savings increased by some €637m to €12,866m. Gross disposable income of households decreased from €89,180m in 2010 to €88,825m in 2011 – a decline of €356m (-0.4 per cent ). In the same period household consumption expenditure fell by €945m (-1.2 per cent ) from €79,292m to €78,347m.
The gross savings ratio, which expresses savings as a percentage of gross disposable income, increased from 13.4 per cent in 2010 to 14.1 per cent in 2011. The corresponding quarterly figures were 2.8 per cent in Q4 2010 and 6.3 per cent in Q4 2011.
Improvement in Government savings deficit
The gross savings of Government (resources less uses ) amounted to a deficit of €10,631m in 2011 – an improvement of €2,394m on the 2010 deficit of €13,025m. This increase is largely explained by higher taxes with taxes on income and wealth at €18,344m, showing an increase of almost €2 billion in 2011.
