Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 26 Oct 2000

Vol. 525 No. 1

Written Answers. - Consumer Price Index.

Ivor Callely

Ceist:

106 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Finance if he will provide a breakdown of the consumer price index; the top five items with the highest price increases; the measures available to him to address these increases; the impact those measures may have on inflation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23675/00]

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

The latest figures show that the Consumer Price Index remained unchanged at 6.2% in September 2000. A breakdown of the main items are as follows:

Commodity Group	Annual Percentage Change
Food	4.6%
Alcoholic Drink	4.9%
Tobacco	17.4%
Clothing & Footwear	-5.6%
Fuel & Light	9.1%
Housing	16.6%
Durable Household Goods	0.7%
Other goods	4.0%
Transport	7.1%
Services & Related expenditure	5.2%
All Items	6.2%

As the table shows, the five items with the highest annual percentage increases are tobacco, housing, fuel and light, transport and services and related expenditure. Some of these increases are due to external factors outside of our control. For example, the increases in fuel and light and transport components largely reflect oil price increases. Similarly, the increase in the housing component partly reflects increases in interest rates by the ECB.

However, domestic factors are also contribu ting to inflationary pressures. The Government has already taken wide ranging measures to combat domestic inflation. These included measures to promote competition and the introduction of a price freeze in certain sectors. Additional resources have been provided to our Competition Authority, while the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs has initiated a programme of price monitoring and publicity.

The Government also last summer announced a series of measures to deal with the growth in house prices. These measures focused on reducing demand and increasing supply.

There is evidence that these anti-inflation policies are having an impact. Alcohol price increases continue to slow and the education and health elements of services showed only marginal increases in September.

Question No. 197 taken with Question No. 57.