Ireland’s Credit Union Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 61.1 in August 2025 from 59.1 in July, posting a modest improvement as the recently agreed US-EU trade deal provided some degree of certainty to the economic outlook. However, projections suggest that tariffs linked to the deal will trim about 1.5 percentage points from Ireland’s growth over the next five years. At the same time, households remain concerned about rising grocery prices and higher utility bills, which continue to weigh on sentiment. The latest reading also lags behind the 64.9 average for the first eight months of 2025 and is well below the long-run average of 83.8 over the survey’s near 30-year history. The survey also highlighted a weaker outlook for the next 12 months, with expectations for the economy standing markedly below levels recorded a year earlier and beneath the 2025 year-to-date average. This suggests that Irish consumers broadly anticipate the economy to be materially weaker in a year’s time.