Mr. Brendan O'Connor:

I will answer from a macroeconomic perspective and I shall answer the last query first.

The Deputy is right. This time last year and any time before the war or during the winter I would have probably said that economies have re-opened and there is a massive surge in demand for goods, although services are completely restricted so consumption has shifted completely over this way, and that has driven up prices around the world. At the same time demand is rising but there are supply shortages for the exact reasons that the Deputy has described, which occur today but occurred this time last year, but that we expect the situation to be alleviated. I refer to things that affect the production of cars and the supply of semi-conductors and, indirectly, the supply of semi-conductors is affected by things like inert or neon gases, which come from Ukraine. So the same problems that we had last year we are likely to have this year though admittedly for different reasons. There is a disruption in the global supply chains but whether it is the energy stuff that we talked about earlier or imported goods into the economy a lot of it is completely imported.

It is very difficult, and China’s Covid strategy will prolong these disruptions.

Some of the data we have seen, even in today's release in the US, shows there are starting to be reductions in, for example, the price of motor vehicles. I raise the US data because they are the most current. There has been a large increase in costs such as those relating to airfares and hospitality, on the services side, and some easing on the goods side. My personal view is this stuff is still time-bound but, obviously, it is dependent on factors over which we have zero control. Trucks that may have come from Far East manufacturers as an alternative to ships last year, when ships were constrained by certain port bottlenecks, went through Russia to get to Germany. Obviously, that is now unavailable to them and it will take time to find alternative solutions. It is as though sand has been thrown into the cogs; the supply chains have been completely disrupted. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the issue is being alleviated and that it is time-bound, but the Deputy is quite right that the problem is very acute at present. It is not unique to Ireland but is a global issue.