Irish consumers are better off than 30 years go but are more pessimistic about their financial wellbeing, according to the latest monthly Credit Union Consumer Sentiment Index.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the index, the report compares the mood now to how consumers felt in 1996.
It shows that consumer spending in Ireland has increased by roughly 90% over those three decades – corrected for the factors of rising prices and the frowing population.
That is above the EU average of 47%.
The average household wealth per person now is more than three times the 1996 level.
However, the sentiment is much weaker now than in previous decades. The index stood at 61.1 in September, well below the long-term 30-year average of 83.
The peak of consumer optimism was the year 2000 at 130.
Three quarters of those surveyed in September said the cost of everyday living and the ability to buy a home is worse now than 30 years ago.
According to RTÉ analysis of Central Statistics Office figures, the price of a house in 1995 was the equivalent of around five times average annual earnings.
In 2024, buying a house in Dublin equated to just under 10 times the median annual salary.
“There’s no doubt that Irish consumers are notably better off now than they were 30 years ago, but it doesn’t feel like that,” economist Austin Hughes, who has analysed consumer sentiment for years, said.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said that consumers feel that the infrastructure is letting them down, that their access to housing, to health care may be more problematic than in the past.
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The geopolitical shocks of the last decade added to the sense worry, according to the report.
“There’s not the same sort of sense of feel good that was there and was probably excessive through the Celtic Tiger years,” the economist said.
He added that the crash left people “psychologically and financially scarred”.
Mr Hughes also noted that there is “a growing feeling of us and them” in Irish society.
The top 10% of earners grew their wealth much more than low-earning groups over those years, he explained.
The research found that there are “signs of a three-tier consumer economy”.
It comprises the “comfortable” who having savings and can spend, the “coping” who are managing but are spending conscious, and the “clinging on” who are under sustained financial pressure.