Inflation slowed by 0.1 per cent in May compared with April as energy prices fell, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show.
The data also indicate prices were up by 3.5 per cent on the same month last year.
The EU Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the Republic show there was inflation of 3.6 per cent in the 12 months to April.
Still, that outpaces the 3 per cent jump in the HICP for the wider euro zone over the same period.
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Looking at the components of the flash HICP for the State in May, energy prices fell by 4.3 per cent in the month. They are still up 11.9 per cent over the year.
Food prices increased by 0.1 per cent in the month and went up by 1.4 per cent in the year.
Excluding energy and unprocessed food, the HICP is estimated to have gone up by 2.7 per cent since May last year.
Eurostat will publish flash estimates of inflation from the EU HICP for the euro zone for May on Monday.
The International Monetary Fund this week warned the Government that budget measures to support households in the aftermath of the inflation shock caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran should be temporary and targeted at the most vulnerable.
In its latest report on the Irish economy, published on Monday, the Washington-based agency said “broad-based personal income-tax reliefs and exemptions” could be reduced to help buttress the Irish tax base, which remains heavily reliant on volatile corporation tax receipts from a handful of multinational companies.
Broadening the tax base could also mean “enhancing” the take from the local property tax and cutting some of the “many reduced rates” of VAT in Ireland, said fund assistant director Yan Sun.
Sun, who leads the fund’s Irish mission, said “there’s a large VAT gap” in the Republic, similar to the gap that exists in the personal income tax regime, in which close to a third of the population pays no income tax.
Central Bank of Ireland governor Gabriel Makhlouf warned this week that the outlook for global energy prices is now closer to the “adverse” scenario the bank’s forecasters set out in March, meaning Irish inflation could accelerate above 3 per cent this year.
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On Wednesday, Central Bank of Ireland officials said that the US-Israeli war on Iran will test the resilience of Irish borrowers and the domestic financial system if a prolonged energy shock adds further fuel to inflation and continues to lower economic growth.
In its first of two financial stability reports of 2026, the authority also highlighted the risk that runaway stock market valuations, particularly related to artificial intelligence (AI), amplify the risk of a “disorderly correction” in global markets spilling over into the Irish financial system.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Makhlouf said the Iran conflict and its effect on global energy and fertiliser markets were his top concern at the moment.
“I’m worried about the geopolitical risks,” he said. “We have zero control over that ... Things have intensified, and it’s not obvious today that there’s a path to returning all of that to some sort of normality.”
