New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) suggest Irish people are saving more money than before.

Preliminary estimates for 2017 indicate gross saving for the economy as a whole increased by €9,634m to €108,780m - compared to €99,146m in 2016.

It says all sectors increased their gross saving, continuing a recent trend.

For households, gross saving went from €6,639m in 2016 to €8,846m in 2017.

The CSO says: "This change is driven by households' gross income rising faster than expenditure on goods and services.

"The gross saving ratio of households, which expresses saving as a percentage of total disposable income, increased from 6.8% in 2016 to 8.6% in 2017".

The CSO adds that in the last quarter of 2017, the seasonally adjusted saving ratio was 8.1%, down from 8.7% in quarter 3.

File photo

The gross saving of Government was €4,887m in 2017, an improvement of €1,841m on 2016.

Capital spending by Government continued to exceed gross saving last year - leaving a net borrowing requirement of €1,208m.

The CSO says this borrowing was down from €1,979m the previous year, and 2017 was the seventh successive year of reduced borrowing since the peak in 2010.

While net borrowing by the rest of the world from Ireland amounted to €10,218m in 2017, compared with €4,128m in 2016.

"This net borrowing is the equal and opposite of the total Irish economy's lending, and the changes are dominated by the large transactions of the non-financial corporations", the CSO notes.

The gross saving of non-financial corporations was €91,893m in 2017 - an increase of €5,333m compared with the 2016 figure of €86,560m

Financial corporations had gross saving of €3,059m in 2017, up from €2,812m the previous year.