The figure comes from the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

This makes March 2023 the eighteenth straight month where the annual increase in the CPI has been at least 5.0%.

However, consumer prices only increased by 1.1% in the month between February 2023 and March 2023.

The divisions with the largest increases in the 12 months to March 2023 were Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas & Other Fuels (+20.8%) and Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages (+13.1%).

Education (-6.3%) was the only division to show a decrease when compared with March 2022.