Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is obviously not aware that we use European and international standards. There is no question of Ireland being any different from any of the other EU member states. There are EU-harmonised indices of consumer prices. As I said, the HICP reflects all the standard items used, including energy prices and mortgage interest rates, for example, which make up a major part of our inflation rate. If those two elements were eliminated from our inflation rate, it would be 2.1%.

See this speech in context