So much for the reliability of the inflation figures. In this climate of concern about rising inflation, a steady figure for three months would normally be all a government needed to start crowing about tops of cycles and turning points.

Instead Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy was muted in his response to the news that the official measure of inflation came in at 6.2 per cent for the third month in a row, substantially below expectations. He even went as far as to warn that the figures might rise next month.

And well he might. It appears the Central Statistics Office took September 12th as its reference point in gauging price rises for the month - that's less than halfway through the period. Perhaps this is standard practice and it may be they were unlucky to have such a turbulent month for prices in September but it seems a misnomer to present monthly inflation figures when one ignores what has happened over the greater part of the month.

Mr McCreevy knows there are oil and mortgage rate increases yet to feed through to the consumer price index. Had they come through in the September figures, he would have had a breather before the Budget when inflation might have subsided.