Retail Ireland Monitor March 2023

Inflation has fallen for the third month in a row, but at 7.8% there is a long way to go before consumers anxiety will ease. Sentiment has recovered somewhat from the low of last September, but remains poor. There are some positives. Employment and tax receipts have remained resilient, and energy prices are not as volatile as feared. Ibec recently upgraded its forecast for both consumer spending and overall domestic demand by 0.5 percentage points. We now expect spending to grow 3.5% in 2023.