Christmas shoppers spent €166 million more on their credit cards last December than they did a year previously, an increase of 16 per cent, according to new figures from the Central Bank.

New credit card spending of €1.2 billion during December saw overall credit card debt rise 19 per cent for 2006 as a whole, the analysis of private sector credit found. Consumers owe a total of €2.7 billion on their credit cards, up from €2.3 billion at the start of the year. The figures come just a day after the Central Bank warned in its quarterly bulletin that consumers are over-exposed to credit. Separate data published yesterday in a survey by BusinessPro Credit Bureau showed that court judgments against consumers and businesses for non-payment of debt rose 8 per cent last year.

Demand for credit continues to run at about two-and-a-half times the euro-zone average, with total lending by Irish credit institutions increasing by €59 billion in 2006.

The annual rate of growth in non-mortgage credit increased to 31.7 per cent in December, up from 30.6 per cent in November.

However, much of this is still property related, with the Central Bank saying that the "expansion of non-mortgage credit was driven by exceptionally strong lending to the real estate and construction sectors". However, the overall rate of annual private sector credit growth slipped from last June's record rate of 30.3 per cent. The rate dropped two percentage points in December to 25.9 per cent.

The Central Bank said it was tempting to associate this with rising interest rates, but it attributed the fall in the rate of credit growth to an €8 billion spike in securitised mortgages. These mortgages are removed from credit institutions' books and are excluded from total private sector credit figures. If these securitisations had not occurred, the rate of private sector credit growth in 2006 would have been "very close" to the 2005 rate of 28.8 per cent, Bloxham Stock- brokers economist Alan McQuaid said. Although demand for mortgages remained strong in 2006 despite higher interest rates, growth slowed in the second half of the year in line with a more sluggish rate of house price increases.

The value of mortgages advanced last year to Irish property owners was €24 billion. But the annual growth rate in residential mortgages appears to have peaked last March at 28.1 per cent. In December, it stood at 25.5 per cent, the slowest rate of increase since December 2003.

Total lending by credit institutions to residents increased by €2.3 billion in December to €317.8 billion. Homeowners now owe €123.3 billion on their mortgages. Growth in outstanding mortgage debt will probably slow to 20 per cent by mid-summer 2007, Davy economist Rossa White said. But this will still be way above the euro-zone average and will remain "too high for comfort" as far as the Central Bank is concerned, Mr McQuaid said.

"Indications that mortgage lending institutions are relaxing their criteria for giving loans will do little to ease the worries in Dame Street," he added.