Press Statement

Preasráiteas

11 August 2022

Go to release: Consumer Price Index July 2022

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (11 August 2022) published the Consumer Price Index July 2022.

Commenting on annual changes shown in the release, Anthony Dawson, Statistician in the Prices Division, said: “The latest publication for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows that prices for consumer goods and services in July 2022 increased by 9.1% on average compared with July 2021. This is the same level of annual inflation that was recorded in June 2022, which was the largest observed in 38 years, when annual inflation stood at 9.7% in Q2 1984. Prices have been rising on an annual basis since April 2021, with an annual inflation of 5.0% or more recorded each month since October 2021.

The most significant increases in the year to July 2022 were seen in Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels which was up 21.6%, and Transport, up 19.4%. Increased energy costs are reflected in the yearly increase of Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels driven by rises in electricity (+40.0%), gas (+56.6%), liquid fuels/home heating oil (+91.9%) and solid fuels (+31.8%) in the year. The annual change in Transport costs reflects a rise in the cost of diesel (+44.8%), petrol (+35.4%), purchase of motor cars (+11.5%) and airfares (+47.8%) compared to July 2021.

Miscellaneous Goods & Services (-1.0%) and Education (-0.7%) were the only divisions to show a decrease when compared with July 2021.”

Commenting on monthly changes shown in the release, Anthony Dawson, Statistician, continued: “Consumer prices in July increased by 0.4% in the month. The divisions with the largest monthly increases were Transport (+1.8%), Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages (+1.5%) and Restaurants & Hotels (+1.2%). The rise in Transport was due to an increase in air fares (+26.9%) and the purchase of vehicles (+0.7%) compared with June 2022. However, this increase was partially offset by the price of Petrol and Diesel which both fell in the month to July by 3.0% and 1.1% respectively.

The only monthly decrease was seen in Clothing & Footwear (-5.0%) due to sales.”

Commenting further, Anthony Dawson added: “National Average Prices for selected CPI goods and services for June 2022 were also made available today by the CSO and show that diesel at €2.09 per litre and petrol at €2.15 per litre were up by 70 cents per litre (+50.7%) and 65 cents per litre (+43.7%) respectively between June 2021 and June 2022.

Looking at the National Average Prices of some staple items:

• The national average price for bread (large (800g) white sliced pan) was up 18 cents in the year to June 2022, while the same size brown sliced pan was up 19 cents in the year.
• Spaghetti per 500g increased by 21 cents in the year while the average price for 2.5kg of potatoes decreased by 20 cents.
• Full fat milk per 2 litres increased by 27 cents in the year while the average price of Irish cheddar per kg rose by €1.07 and butter per lb rose by 48 cents.
• The national average price of a take-home 50cl can of lager at €2.14 was up 26 cents on average from June 2021 while a take-home 50cl can of cider at €2.43 was up 22 cents.
• In June 2022, the national average price of a pint of stout in licensed premises was €5.13, up 17 cents a pint in the year, while a pint of lager was €5.53, up 22 cents compared with June 2021.”

The National Average Prices are compiled together with the CPI. The comprehensive list of items included in the National Average Prices and their monthly prices are available at: https://data.cso.ie/table/CPM12

Consumer Price Index 1984 vs 2022

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is designed to measure the change in the average level of prices paid by households for consumer goods and services. Pre-1997, the CPI was produced on a quarterly basis. Since January 1997 it has been produced monthly. The index measures the change in prices for a fixed basket of goods and services. In order to remain representative of consumer expenditure, the basket of goods and services is updated every five years, known as the rebase, based on the Household Budget Survey (HBS). Items in the basket of goods and services used in 1984 that are no longer included in today’s CPI included Monochrome TVs, Telegrams and LP records.

Along with updating the items included in the basket, the weights assigned to these items are also updated. Since 2012 this is done annually where previously it was done at rebase only. There are some noticeable changes to weights from 1984 to 2022: Bread was 1.37% of the overall basket in 1984, while in 2022 it is only 0.61%; Rent was 1.18% in 1984, but it now accounts for 7.64% and Petrol & Diesel were 6.09% in 1984 but in 2022 they are 3.71%.

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