Mr. Ian Power:

Prices in Ireland have been moving broadly in line with the euro area over the past year, after several years of inflation running well below the euro area average. We had several months of falling prices, starting last December, and as a result the average inflation rate this year is still negative at -0.1%. This is mainly attributable to falling oil prices, which continue to act as a major drag on headline inflation. If, however, we consider core inflation, excluding volatile energy prices and unprocessed food prices we see that core inflation is up 1.1% on average this year. Core inflation is being driven by increases in the price of services. We anticipate that, as the impact of lower energy prices wanes, headline inflation will move back broadly in line with core inflation.