The CSO has been trusted for 75 years to gather, analyse, and publish information about our society and economy. We are particularly conscious of the important social history aspect associated with the changes to the items in our basket of goods and services, the prices of which are collected for the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Consumer spending habits change regularly, and the basket of goods and services needs to reflect those changes. The types of items added to or removed from the national basket of goods and services over the years, which helps the CSO better measure inflation based on the items being purchased, provides a unique snapshot of our changing shopping habits through the decades.
We have produced an Excel document with a selection of some of the hundreds of items that have been added and removed over the last 50 years. It is not possible to provide a list of every item change over that time or of items prior to 1975. However, details of the changes to the basket of goods and services can be found in the Methodology section of each rebase.
For further information please contact CPI@cso.ie
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