Mr. Brendan O'Connor:

The Deputy is quite right about inflation in France. As far as I know, the rate of inflation in France was something of the order of 5.4% in April. I guess we are getting desensitised because in Ireland in April it was 7.3%, so it is comparatively lower. If you look at Irish inflation though, energy prices most recently, I think in April, had gone up year on year by something of the order of 44%. It only about 8% or 9% of the overall basket but that sort of increase probably accounted for about half of the inflationary increase or there or thereabouts. Thereafter, we are still seeing some price increases on the goods side. Essentially, for the past decade, goods prices year on year were generally negative, for many reasons. There was low-cost production in the far east and benefits from global supply chains kept prices low. That has slightly reversed. The pandemic has given rise to higher goods prices in Ireland and of course food is an issue. However, we are not yet in the space where some goods and some foods are the subject of very strong rates of inflation.

On the basis of recent data, the price of energy is still the main driver of inflation. Today's data are interesting and show that US inflation was 8.3% in the month of April, but that core inflation, stripping out energy prices - energy actually fell by 6% in the US in April - was 6.2%. While the Deputy's question was about France, price increases in the US appear to be much more broadly based than in Ireland. In Ireland and in some other European countries, it has been very much concentrated on energy to date.

There will be some exceptions in the context of some products in the basket, but it is not yet at the stage where it is being passed through. We are expecting that to happen. I stated earlier that we expect to see the effects passed through. Obviously, food is one to watch. While there might be exceptions on a product-by-product basis, on aggregate, food price inflation is not accelerating very strongly. At this point, it is still relatively low and, interestingly, still lower than the euro area average. Of course, we have seen extraordinarily high increases in fertiliser prices. One fifth of our fertiliser comes from Russia. It is one of the things in respect of which prices have accelerated quite a bit. Wheat prices and general energy prices, particularly that of gas, will have an impact on products. It will take a bit of time. We might see it later in the year.