Overall, the cost of living in Ireland has risen by 0.1% in the last year.
It certainly was not cheap to live in Ireland during 2015 with rising costs in virtually all areas of expenditure. The Consumers Association of Ireland has said in their report that families in Ireland continue to struggle with these rising living costs….
- Home insurance premiums rose 7%
- Payments for health insurance plans have risen 2% in the last year
- People renting their home have had to endure an average 8% hike
- Education costs — most notably for third level — have also increased.
As if this weren’t enough, car insurance premiums have risen by an average of 30% in the last year and this august body has called for an independent review into the motor insurance industry.
The evidence is that there is a widening gap between home owners and private renters as the costs of private rents continued to climb. Private rents soared in the year, while mortgage interest costs have fallen 7.3%.
The huge housing costs gap will likely widen further if new ECB measures widely expected next month were to keep mortgage costs here lower for longer.
Although the VAT reduction for the hospitality industry brought an initial fall, it appears that hotel and restaurant prices are on the rise again. This, of course, could be an indication of increased demand resulting from a general optimism in the population.
Huge rises in some goods and services were offset by lower diesel and petrol prices as well as the dropping cost of buying a car. Over the year, clothing was also cheaper — but mainly as a result of sales — while the price of food staples such as meat, milk, cheese, eggs, bread, and cereals also dropped slightly. This is down to cut-price supermarkets.
However, the price of vegetables has gone up, with the cost of potatoes jumping 10% at the checkouts over the past year although this could be a result of the poor Summer and Autumn weather in 2015.