{"id":610165,"date":"2026-08-31T12:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T12:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/610165\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T12:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T12:52:09","slug":"higher-energy-prices-drive-irish-inflation-to-3-4-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/610165\/","title":{"rendered":"Higher energy prices drive Irish inflation to 3.4% \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Higher energy prices drove <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cost-of-living\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cost-of-living\">Irish inflation<\/a> to 3.4 per cent in August, the highest level in three months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The latest Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) indicated that energy prices increased by 4.3 per cent between July and August as ongoing uncertainty over the US-Iran conflict continued to keep oil prices high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The latest readout comes ahead of inflation numbers for the euro zone as a whole, which are expected to indicate prices in August were at least 3 per cent higher than a year ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Some expect an even sharper rise in inflation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">With European inflation sitting above the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/european-central-bank\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/european-central-bank\">European Central Bank\u2019s<\/a> (ECB) 2 per cent target level, markets are expecting the bank to announce another interest rate hike in September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">ECB policymakers are ready to raise interest rates at \u200ctheir next meeting in September to contain the side effects of the \u200bIran war but they have little \u200bappetite to signal further tightening after that,  according to Reuters. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The latest Irish HICP indicated that food prices fell by 0.2 per cent last month and have gone up by 0.1 per cent in the last 12 months. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Service prices remain unchanged in the month and have risen by 3.7 per cent in the 12 months to August, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-statistics-office\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-statistics-office\">Central Statistics Office (CSO)<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Inflation as measured by the HICP, which is different from the CSO\u2019s official barometer of inflation \u2013 the CPI (consumer price index) \u2013 had fallen to almost zero at the end of 2024 on the back of falling energy prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">But US\u2019s ill-fated attack on Iran has triggered a second energy price shock, aggravating cost-of-living pressures in Western countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWith \u200cEuropean \u200binflation dynamics coming through this week, that probability may be massaged around the edges,\u201d Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, said in a note. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe turn the page \u2060on month-end and head into a data-dependent, central \u200bbank-focused September. With multiple central banks potentially tightening policy &#8230; \u200bTreasury yields testing important levels and geopolitical risk remaining elevated, there is plenty for traders to navigate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Germany\u2019s policy-sensitive two-year government \u200cbond yield hit its highest level since July 2024, \u200btaking cues from US Treasuries after Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh on Friday signalled interest rates may need \u2060to rise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Irish HICP figure will feed into wider inflation numbers for the euro zone as a whole due out on Tuesday. \u2013 Additional reporting by Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Higher energy prices drove Irish inflation to 3.4 per cent in August, the highest level in three months.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,14787,943,113,12965,61,60],"class_list":["post-610165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-central-statistics-office","tag-cost-of-living","tag-economy","tag-european-central-bank-ecb","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610165","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=610165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}