Households countrywide saved 12.4 per cent, or €1 in €8, of their disposable income in the final three months of last year, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The provisional saving rate for 2025 as a whole was 13.6 per cent, similar to 2024 and higher than 2023, the agency said.
The figures come as Minister for Finance Simon Harris prepares to introduce a new easy access savings scheme aimed at encouraging Irish households to invest.
Canada’s Tax-Free Savings Account, which allows people to save up to €7,000 Canadian dollars (€4,339) a year tax-free, is understood to be one of the models under review.
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The European Commission is encouraging member states to develop tax-efficient savings vehicles as part of a broader push to strengthen the savings and investments union and European Union competitiveness in the process.
Households here are sitting on approximately €170 billion in bank deposits, earning little or nothing.
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“Saving can add to a household’s overall wealth in the form of buying new homes, growing bank deposits, pension savings and paying off debt,” said the CSO.
“The decrease in the seasonally adjusted household saving rate from [the third quarter of] 2025 was due to a combination of a flat level of household income combined with an increase in spending on final consumption,” it said.
Household consumption rose 2 per cent on the previous three months, said the agency, while incomes were down fractionally by 0.1 per cent.
The agency noted that the saving rate can be more variable in the final three months of the year due to additional household spending at Christmas.
Disposable income is the income remaining after deducting tax and social insurance that is available to be spent or saved. The figures indicate households saved €2.5 billion in the final quarter.
“While Ireland is very good at saving, it is far less confident when it comes to investing,” said Teresa Bruen from insurance broker Gallagher.
“A large volume of household wealth is effectively parked in cash or property, which is safe in the short term but often inefficient over longer time horizons. Many savers continue to use easy-access accounts as the default, missing out on better returns available through short-term fixed deposits or other investment options,” she added.
“Simon Harris’s SSIA-like [special saving incentive account] proposal could help middle-income savers engage with investing, but such schemes carry risk and do not guarantee returns,” said Bruen.
“Without guidance, individuals may invest in assets they are unprepared for or struggle to cope with market volatility,” she said.
SSIAs were introduced in 2001 by former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy to incentivise household saving.
As part of the scheme, the government topped up savings in SSIAs by 25 per cent of the amount saved each month over a five-year period.
The scheme attracted about 1.1 million subscribers and enabled the accumulation of an estimated €16 billion in savings.
While it was widely praised at inception for encouraging financial prudence, it had unintended consequences and got caught up in and mired by the financial crash that followed.
