Strong growth in footfall and sales since the start of 2015 has pushed the Bannon Shopping Centre Portfolio into positive territory.

The estate agent says footfall is up 2.9 per cent and sales up 7.5 per cent at the shopping centres whose performance it tracks.

These centres include large regional shopping centres – such as Pavilions in Swords, Whitewater Shopping Centre in Newbridge and Athlone Towncentre Shopping Centre – and smaller local schemes such as Gorey Shopping Centre and Tipperary Town Shopping Centre.

Bannon manages over 278,709sq m (three million sq ft) of retail assets with a combined annual footfall of over 60 million people.

"The rate at which retailer sales is outstripping growth in footfall is quite impressive and means that spend per customer is substantially higher than during the same period in 2014," says Ray Geraghty, assistant director at Bannon.

“This demonstrates a substantial improvement in consumer sentiment, brought about by increased disposable income.”

Mr Geraghty also said that, while all retail categories had experienced growth, jewellers and women’s fashions had been the star performers. “This underscores the fact that people have more disposable income,” he said.