Vol. 518 No. 6
57 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach the inquiry which has been held into the circumstances in which the Central Statistics Office issued data on 31 March 2000 regarding retail sales figures which gave a deceptively low indication of the level of retail inflation for the year to the end of January 2000; the procedures which have been put in place to ensure that such an error is not repeated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12751/00]
An error was made in decomposing the January 2000 provisional retail sales index increase published on 31 March into its price and volume components which resulted in the implied annual price change in the retail sector being too low. An inadvertent error was involved, not one of a methodological nature. This was identified in the calculation of the final detailed retail sales index for January 2000 and a correction was issued by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, on 11 April 2000. Procedures have been put in place to ensure this error is not repeated.
I am fully satisfied with the procedures in place in the CSO to ensure reliable and timely statistics are made available to users and I commend the CSO on its longstanding policy of publicly correcting any errors identified in the statistics it publishes.
