Indo - "There is no cost of living crisis for majority of people in Ireland says IBEC CEO"

Irish food and alcohol prices among highest in Eurozone, with basic groceries far above EU average

CSO figures reveal Irish consumers pay steep markups for essentials as charities warn of worsening cost-of-living crisis
www.irishexaminer.com
 
joe sod said:
it was after euro came in 2002 that everything went craz
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Not nitpicking, but it's also worth remembering though that the Euro came into being on 1 January 1999, although it was 3 years later when coins and banknotes replaced their Irish pound equivalent.

Its inflationary effects, especially on property, were obvious in Ireland almost overnight, and government and the the Central Bank were stumped in how to react to that.

I remember the ESRI economist Terry Baker arguing that a tax on mortgages might have worked as a response but that came to nothing sadly.

It was all a terrible folly that culminated in disaster post 2008 and it's eminently arguable that Ireland hasn't been fully right since.
 
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Yes, I would also argue that manipulating our tax code to allow multinationals to move their IP here and all the corporation tax to flow in has also not been healthy. It has been grossly inflationary and allowed the state to act like drunken sailors. The moribund state architecture is not able to cope with such large revenue inflows. Ultimately I think it will be proven to be folly aswell.
 
Purple said:
@ClubMan, from the linked article it looks like those are gross figures and not adjusted for purchasing power.
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I didn't write the article. You might want to contact the Indo or the CSO if you have issues with the data and analysis.
 
ClubMan said:
I didn't write the article. You might want to contact the Indo or the CSO if you have issues with the data and analysis.
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I didn't say you did. I was just pointing out how The Cork Examiner was, as usual, misrepresenting the data in order to be sensationalist.
 
Purple said:
. . . from the linked article it looks like those are gross figures and not adjusted for purchasing power.
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The article compares prices in the eurozone. I'm not sure that purchasing power has any relevance in this context.

Purchasing power is a concept used to compare the relative value of currencies by comparing what can be bought with each currency.

For example, suppose a basket of consumer goods and services can be bought in the US for $100, and in euroland the same basked costs €120. Ifd a US person going to euroland is to have the same purchasing power in euroland as they have at home (and vice versa), $1 should buy $1.20; €1.20 is the purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate.

If, in fact, $1 will only buy €1.10 then the dollar is undervalued according to PPP.

You can use the concept to compare living standards by adjusting GDP figures, houshold income figures or whatever by reference to the PPP exchange rate. (You can also use it as a tool to predict exchange rate movements if you think that currencies do, in fact, tend to trade at PPP rates, but not everybody does think that.)

But in this case all the places being compared are in euroland, and all the prices are in euros, so the purchasing power of different currencies doesn't enter into the question at all.
 
Fair enough @TomEdison, I meant to say that it didn't take real income (or PPP adjusted for income) into account.
 
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ClubMan said:
They're just using the data from the CSO.
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Yep, and they should, as a newspaper, present the information in context.
It reminds me of the Jimmy Carr joke that people in some developing countries survive on a dollar a day, which just goes to show we are being ripped off for groceries.
 
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SF with some more solid numbers this time:

The number of households in arrears on their energy bills has hit a record high, just as network charges are set to rise.
Figures obtained by Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan show 301,000 households were in arrears on their electricity bills in May. Ms Boylan said this was a record. Another 175,000 domestic gas customers are behind on their bills.
Small firms are also struggling to keep up to date with their bills. A total of 27,400 small firms were in arrears on their electricity bills in May, according to the figures provided to Ms Boylan by Energy Minister Darragh O’Brien.

Record numbers in arrears on energy bills as families ‘forced to prioritise buying groceries’

The number of households in arrears on their energy bills has hit a record high, just as network charges are set to rise.
www.independent.ie
 
The government giving out all those lucrative energy contracts and feed in tarriffs for wind and renewables is coming back to bite them in the ass now with us having the most expensive electricity in Europe. The wind companies cleaned up when prices were inflated by high oil and gas prices due to russian invasion of Ukraine yet they were not buying that themselves. Surely the renewable sector should be charged with the cost when they cannot provide power 24 hours, 7 days a week. Currently they reap all the benefits but non of the costs .
 
Purple said:
The only Green energy source that is a viable alternative to hydrocarbons is nuclear.
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20 countries with 90% or more of their electricity supplied by non-nuclear & non-fossil fuel energy sources would disagree with that utterly uninformed statement.

My solar panels would also like a quick word.

Just because we consistently choose-via our electoral and legal systems- to prioritise narrowly defined short term individual interests over the long term common good doesn't mean it's impossible to run an electricity grid entirely on renewables. You might as well say that because we can't manage to build reasonably priced apartments that the only viable alternative to a 3 bed semi-D is a tent.

Let's be very clear- technology isn't an obstacle and neither is economics. The only problem is we the people, primarily in the form of voters and litigators...
 
It depends what newspaper you read.
Today I am reading an article, the headline says something totally different...

"Record numbers in arrears on energy bills as families ‘forced to prioritise buying groceries"
 
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fistophobia said:
It depends what day you read the Indo.
Today I am reading an article, the headline says something totally different...

"Record numbers in arrears on energy bills as families ‘forced to prioritise buying groceries"
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Indo - "There is no cost of living crisis for majority of people in Ireland says IBEC CEO"

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41674892.html Ireland is the second most expensive country in the Eurozone for food and alcohol, with consumers paying significantly more for items like milk and bread compared to the EU average, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has said. ... Irish...
www.askaboutmoney.com
 
JoeRoberts said:
Let's have a chat with them in December
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Keep paying those electricity bills if you believe solar panels don't work in winter. It won't cost me anything- my electricity supplier knows better, primarily because I haven't given them any money since I switched to them well over a year ago and I've already got several hundred euro credit built up to get me through next winter!
 
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