Cost of living increases leading to possible inflation, with the potential to recur again and again in the time ahead, continue to be a concern for the general public. In this regard, might it be possible to set up a unit to identify the cause or causes of this? For example, some appear to be as a result of price gouging and some are probably genuine, but there is an urgent need to differentiate between the one and the other. Might it be possible at this stage to set up a particular unit in a Department to monitor what is going on and to inform the general public?

That is a good idea and definitely worthy of examination. My Department has responsibility for consumer affairs and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, falls under our remit, so I will talk to my officials about that to see if there is something we can do around price monitoring. I should say that it is clear to me that the drivers of inflation are multifactorial. Some of it is down to monetary policy and the amount of money printed in recent years, combined with very low interest rates by central banks, what is happening in Ukraine and the snapback effect from the pandemic in terms of demand. There are a lot of factors but, in some cases, it may well be price gouging and profiteering, and we should have a mechanism to identify that. The Deputy’s suggestion is very welcome in that regard.