Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 November 2021

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Inflation: Discussion

Dr. Ella Kavanagh:

My answer was around that but I could not think of instruments that we could actually use to deal with inflation. There is one point I would like to make. To go back to the fact that inflation was so low for so long prior to the pandemic, if we are talking about an inflation rate around 2%, which Professor Whelan referred to earlier, I want to reiterate the point that it would not be a major concern for us and, in fact, the ECB would like inflation to come back up to 2%. That is one point to make. We are probably thinking more in terms of the actual level of inflation but we do need some inflation in the system. It is the number that we are probably most concerned about.