Dr. Claire Keane:

More recent inflation has tended to be higher for people on lower incomes and, exactly as Dr. McQuinn has said, driven by what has been fuelling inflation, such as rises in energy and food costs. These are components of people's budgets who are down the lower end of income distribution that they spend a lot more on. Anything that drives up the price of energy or fuel, so things like excise duties or food, will be felt more strongly by those at the bottom of the income distribution. We tend to take them into account when we analyse the budget every year. We look at increases in things like excise duty. We also look to see if rises in things like social welfare actually compensated people enough for those rises. The Deputy is right in that those increases will be felt more by people at the lower end of the income distribution and those in rural areas who tend to spend more of their money on energy and fuel.