![\"Many](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6c9808b7-be18-4cea-8f11-60ddbfdfd87d.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe elevated prices are costing the average household close to \u20ac2,000 a year, according to a nationwide survey carried out by market research company iReach and seen by the Irish Independent.<\/p>\n
The findings come after one electricity and gas supplier announced a price rise, with more expected to hike prices in the coming months.<\/p>\n
Based on the findings, the average increase in bills per household has worked out at \u20ac165 a month so far this year. That equates to \u20ac1,980 over a year.<\/p>\n
Food prices, particularly for meat products, have been rising at double-digit rates.<\/p>\n
Home-heating oil has shot up by \u20ac500 for 1,000 litres since the outbreak of the Iran war and petrol and diesel prices have spiked, prompting two cuts in excise duty by the Government.<\/p>\n
Health insurers have imposed multiple price rises in the last few months.<\/p>\n
Around 53pc of respondents to the survey said their household costs were up significantly. Another 42pc said their bills were up a lot.<\/p>\n
When asked how much financial pressure their household was under from inflation, 34pc said they were dealing with significantly increased pressure and 49pc said they were under increased pressure.<\/p>\n
About 15pc of respondents said they had taken on debt to cover higher costs<\/p>\n
In total, 83pc of households said they were feeling under pressure as a result of rising prices.<\/p>\n
Respondents cited energy when asked which bills were up the most, followed by groceries, motor fuels, health insurance and car insurance.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Many households are struggling to pay their heating bills. Photo: Stock image<\/p>\n
Today’s News in 90 Seconds – May 6th <\/p>\n
Actions taken by householders to manage these pressures included reducing their non-essential spending, cutting back on their energy use, tapping into their savings and switching providers.<\/p>\n
About 15pc of respondents said they had taken on debt to cover higher costs.<\/p>\n
Households are budgeting for energy costs to increase, with an average rise of 15pc expected.<\/p>\n
Currently, 10pc of households cannot pay their full bills and a further 14pc will be unable to pay more than they already do.<\/p>\n
Almost half will have to find other savings in household bills to cover any increases.<\/p>\n
Spending sacrifices planned by householders include a further reduction in energy usage, delaying home improvements, cutting back on family holidays or summer camps, spending less on food and driving less.<\/p>\n
A third of respondents said they have no financial buffer in place to cope with further increases in what they need to spend. Around 37pc have some buffer, but do not believe it will be enough.<\/p>\n
The remaining 27pc said they have a buffer to cover increases.<\/p>\n
Asked how much in savings they would need to switch energy suppliers, 30pc said a 10pc reduction in energy costs would be enough to get them to switch, but 43pc would need to save 20pc to justify switching.<\/p>\n
Research director with iReach, Ois\u00edn Byrne, said: \u201cHouseholds nationwide are already under financial pressure with monthly bills up by an average of \u20ac165 so far this year, driven by cost increases in many household bills and led by big increases in energy and grocery bills.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The elevated prices are costing the average household close to \u20ac2,000 a year, according to a nationwide survey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,3361,943,113,8655,61,11829,60,3362],"class_list":["post-434718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-charlie-weston","tag-cost-of-living","tag-economy","tag-health-insurance","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-money-experts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}