Over 870,000 individuals availed of a Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) from March 2020 up to the week ending 29 August 2021, new CSO figures show.

Apart from a fall of 0.8% in Q3, property prices increased gradually throughout 2020 compared with 2019 and were 5.9% more expensive in Q2 2021 than the same quarter in 2019.

However, growth in property prices was not uniform, with prices outside of Dublin rising by 7.2% over this period, while prices in Dublin grew by 4.8%.

Restaurants

Household expenditure on goods and services fell by €10 billion in 2020 compared with 2019, with spending on restaurants and hotels most affected, falling by €6.5 billion. 

The CSO’s Economic Life and COVID-19 in Ireland, 2020-2021 offers comparisons to pre-pandemic Ireland on a range of economic indicators and statistics.

The statistics show that household expenditure on alcoholic beverages for home consumption rose by close to €0.5 billion in 2020. 

New dwelling completions fell by 536 units in 2020 compared with 2019 but by Q2 2021, new dwelling completions were higher than the same quarter in 2019 by 188 units.

Wholesale cost of building and construction materials rose slightly in 2020 however, by Q2 2021 these materials were 5.7% more expensive than the same quarter pre-pandemic (2019).

Government expenditure increased by €15.7bn in 2020, mainly due to spending on COVID-19 measures such as the PUP at €5.1 billion, while revenues fell by €4.5 billion.

Savings 

In 2020, gross saving of households increased by 166%, reaching €31.5 billion in 2020. 

Statistician Brian O’Mahony said: “In the wake of the arrival of the pandemic in Ireland in March 2020, the numbers in employment fell by 158,100 in Q2 compared with Q2 2019 and remained below comparable 2019 levels for Q3 and Q4 2020, and Q1 2021.

“However, employment levels rebounded in Q2 2021, with 211,000 more people in employment than the previous year, and 52,900 more than in 2019.

“Higher employment levels were not experienced uniformly across all sectors – while information and communication had 20% more employees in Q2 2021 than Q2 2019, accommodation and food service activities had close to a third fewer employees.

“Households spent less on goods and services throughout 2020. However, despite a 22% fall in retail sale volumes in Q2 2020 compared with Q2 2019, the volume of sales was almost 10% higher in Q3 2020 and by 3.3% in Q4 2020 than the same quarters in the previous year.”

By Q2 2021, retail sale volumes were 8.7% greater than the same quarter pre-pandemic (2019).

Similarly, while average consumer prices fell by 0.3% in 2020, by Q2 2021 prices were 1.1% more expensive than the same quarter in 2019.

Based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the economy expanded by 5.9% in 2020.

Domestic economy

However, the domestic economy (as measured by Modified Total Domestic Demand or MTDD, an indicator designed to exclude large transactions of foreign corporations that do not have a big impact on the domestic economy), contracted by 4.2% in 2020.

“The total economy, (as measured by GDP), expanded by 22.7% in the second quarter of 2021 compared with Q2 2019, while the domestic economy, (as measured by MTDD), grew by 5.2% over the same period,” said O’Mahony.