Galvin is one of 1.1 million people who hold a collective 16 billion euros ($19 billion) in Special Savings Incentive Accounts, where the government paid a 1-euro bonus for every 4 euros deposited. Now a program designed to boost savings may overheat the euro-region's fastest-growing economy as the five-year accounts begin to mature.

With one in three Irish adults holding an average of 14,000 euros in SSIAs, companies including Nissan Motor Co. and Bang & Olufsen A/S are advertising special offers for cars, electronics and vacations.

The end of the saving incentive may spur inflation and curb competitiveness, says Maurice Pratt, chief executive officer of Dublin-based C&C Group Plc, the maker of Magners cider and Tullamore Dew whiskey.

Irish labor costs are already outpacing the rest of Europe and the U.S., according to a 2005 report by the government-appointed National Competitiveness Council. Total costs per worker climbed 36 percent from 1999 to 2004, compared with 7 percent in Germany and 21 percent in the U.S., the report said.

NEC Electronics Corp., the world's third-largest maker of microcontrollers, said Feb. 21 it planned to fire 350 workers as it moves some production from Ballivor, 40 miles west of Dublin, to Malaysia and Singapore, to cut costs.

It's difficult to predict the full impact SSIAs will have on the economy, says Alan Barrett, a senior researcher at Dublin's Economic and Social Research Institute.

Former Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, now the European Union's commissioner of internal markets and services, introduced the savings plan in 2001 to siphon money out of the economy after prices surged during the economic boom of the late 1990s. Consumers were allowed to deposit as much as 254 euros a month in their SSIAs, holding the money in interest-bearing savings or equities- linked investments.

Ireland's economy grew at an average rate of 9.7 percent in the five years through 2000, almost four times the average of the dozen euro nations. The pace of growth eased to 6.2 percent in 2001 and slowed further to 4.6 percent last year, according to government estimates.

Three-quarters of the money saved was placed in accounts that paid an average interest rate of 3 percent, says Eamonn Hughes, a banking analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers in Dublin.

Some executives are concerned the end of the program, as accounts mature by the end of April 2007, will reawaken the spending impulses of Irish consumers.

``I expect a retail boom, and a spike-up in inflation over the next 18 months, as builders, for example, raise their prices,'' says Liam O'Dwyer, 50, CEO of the Dublin-based Irish League of Credit Unions, a pressure group for savings cooperatives.

Inflation may accelerate to 2.5 percent this year, according to the European Commission. Inflation across the euro region will average 2.2 percent, the Brussels-based Commission forecasts.

Many SSIA holders are still choosing to live for today, says Anthony Long, a travel agent who represents El Pueblito Beach Hotel in Cancun, Mexico. At Dublin's annual travel show, Long secured 300 reservations for the resort, up from 45 last year.

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