The figures from the Central Bank of Ireland sound astronomical, but when you break it down, you can see how they reached them.

While the country is being ravaged by a cost of living crisis, new figures from the Central Bank Of Ireland indicate that the wealth of Irish households has surpassed €1 trillion.

Emmet Oliver joined The Hard Shoulder to discuss these figures, and help explain where the €1.4 trillion comes from.

He said: "So these figures today [come] from the Central Bank of Ireland. This is taking all the wealth of everyone in the country, nothing to do with companies, nothing to do with the government.

"It comes to €1.4 trillion, which equals out for everyone in the state to almost €300,000 per person, if you measure that out equally. Of course, it's not distributed equally.

"Almost 10% own half of that money and the reason it's been increasing in value over the last year, according to the Central Bank, it's obviously property where two thirds of our wealth is held in property, not just residential, but people have other properties as well.

"We're a very property-heavy state, far more than other countries. If you look at the US, they have all their money in 401ks, which go on to the stock exchange.

"Also rising in value has been the financial assets held by Irish people, so they have the properties I've mentioned, but also they have bank deposits."

Other finances taken into account are money in the stock market, insurance, life assurance and pensions.

Mr Oliver explained that all these avenues have been increasing as the stock exchange has been doing well because of AI and other technology areas.

"Then you put the property stuff up and there is that figure, €1.4 trillion, but unfortunately, very little of it is liquid," he added.