ItÂ’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and shoppers have already spent about 5 per cent more on Black Friday this year, according to early figures from retailers.

Retail Ireland is expecting the best Christmas in seven years - with sales to reach 4 billion euro - a 3.5 per cent increase on last year.

548 thousand people hit Dublin City Centre in search of sales last Friday – which was down slightly on last year – but that’s being put down to the bad weather of Storm Clodagh.

As Helen Vaughan reports, although there were fewer shoppers, they spent more money.