Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agaibh as ucht teacht os comhair an choiste. I missed some of the debate as a result of being at another committee. If I am following up on things that have already been talked about, the witnesses should not hesitate to let me know.

One of the issues I would like to get a view on is inflation, on which there is a lot of discussion at the moment. What we frequently hear is around a wage-price spiral. We see that energy prices and the reopening of supply chains are driving inflation rather than wages. I saw a graph in the Financial Times this week that showed hourly earnings in the private sector back as far as 2015 in the eurozone in comparison to the United States and Britain. It showed that, since 2020, wage growth was almost stagnant in the eurozone but there were good gains in the US and Britain. I would like to hear the witnesses’ views in regard to evidence or lack thereof of a wage-price spiral. If wages are not the driver, would an inflation-adjusted wage increase not be of benefit? That is my first question.