Dr. Tom McDonnell:

The CSO has the data monthly so should be able to reduce the time lag to six to eight weeks eventually. It should be quite timely. Those are wage data. As for the inflation data you are talking about, Chairman, the answer is that we do not collect those data as well as some other countries. For example, the United States has what has been called a personal consumption deflator. They are able to analyse what is happening to prices at a micro level based on what people are actually buying, whereas in Ireland we rely on a basket of goods and every month the CSO goes out and literally looks in shops and sees what has happened to those goods. My understanding is that there are opportunities to improve those data based on the way we now buy things, using debit cards and so forth far more than we used to. Purchasing information is getting better. That said, it is still not where it could be. The answer to your question, Chairman, is that we are getting better but certainly not on a real-time basis.