Press Statement

Preasráiteas

12 September 2019

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (12 September 2019) published the following statistics:

1. Comparative Price Levels for Food, Beverages and Tobacco 2018
2. Consumer Price Index August 2019
3. Residential Property Price Index July 2019
4. Agricultural Price Indices July 2019

Commenting on the reports, Barra Casey, Senior Statistician, said: “Prices play an important role in the functioning of market economies by providing a link between the supply and demand of goods and services. Four of the CSO’s regular price releases are being published today. This information helps to inform market participants and government about relative price levels across Europe and the change in prices over time.

Among 37 countries in Europe in 2018, Ireland was the eighth most expensive for Food, second most expensive for Non-Alcoholic Beverages, fourth most expensive for Alcohol and third most expensive for Tobacco. Consumer price levels in Ireland are broadly at the same level as Nordic countries such as Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.

The price of consumer products purchased by households rose by 0.7% in the year to August 2019. The most notable changes in the year were increases in Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco (+3.1%), Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels (+2.9%) and Restaurants & Hotels (+2.0%). There were decreases in Communications (-6.3%) and Furnishings, Household Equipment & Routine Household Maintenance (-4.0%).

The price of residential property purchased by households increased by 2.3% nationally in the year to July. This compares with an increase of 10.0% in the twelve months to July 2018. In Dublin, residential property prices decreased by only 0.2% in the year to July, with house prices down by 0.5% and apartments rising by 0.9%. The highest house price growth in Dublin was in South Dublin at 3.0%, while Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown saw a decline of 6.3%. Residential property prices outside of Dublin were 4.8% higher in the year to July with large variations across the regions. The highest growth of 16.1% was recorded in the Border region, the lowest, at just 0.4%, in Mid-East.

Turning to agriculture, output prices for farmers fell by 2.2% on average in the year to July 2019. However, there was some variation by type of output with crops rising by 1.3%, animal outputs such as cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry decreasing by 2.8% and animal products such as milk, eggs and wool falling by 4.3%.”

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