Minster for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has welcomed the fall in inflation here, saying "it shows the hard work is working and we need to continue with it - because if we don't get inflation down we are going to be poorer for longer".
Mr Donohoe is in Washington DC, meeting senior officials from the US administration including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chairman of the Federal reserve Jerome Powell, in his capacity as President of Eurogroup.
Discussions centred on the policy decisions being made on both sides of the Atlantic aimed at growing the economy, dealing with inflation, managing the energy transition and dealing with geopolitical events such as the war in Ukraine.
Inflation has been a major source of economic and political difficulty over the past two years on both sides of the Atlantic.
With elections on the horizon in both the US and the European Union next year (and possibly a national election in Ireland too), slowing down price rises has been a political imperative, as well as an economic one.
And it has been driven by the crude and painful instrument of interest rate rises.
Mr Donohoe said the falling inflation rate showed the Central Bank interest rate rises were having an effect, and that the Government's budget policy was "not getting in the way of inflation coming down".
"Even though the journey to get inflation down has been very difficult for households and businesses. It is moving in the right direction.
"And we need to continue with our efforts to get it down further for this year on net.
"I know that it has caused so much difficulties to shoppers, to households for businesses. But if we don't get inflation down, we're going to be poor for longer, and it's going to have a really awful effect on our economies in the years ahead," Mr Donohoe said.
He said the economic relationship between the US, EU, and Ireland is the most important economic relationship in the world, and is "a hugely important political relationship" covering issues from inflation to the war in Ukraine.
The Russian invasion last year produced a spike in energy costs, and a fall in the value of the euro against the dollar, that led to a surge in inflation.
Mr Donohoe said: "Surging inflation has an awful effect on households and businesses.
"And because of that, of course, it affects the politics of any country in which inflation is having a really significant effect on living standards.
"But really importantly, we are now seeing inflation begin to slow down. And if we can continue with our efforts to slow inflation down, and to get it back to more reasonable and familiar and low levels next year, that will I believe, begin to have an effect on how households see their wages, and how businesses see their expenses and what they can afford to do.
"But of course the energy market is potentially very volatile and can potentially change because of the impact of the war on Ukraine and also because of the conflict in the Middle East.
"So that is why we are retaining energy credits, even though inflation is beginning to come down, because things can change.
"And even though energy words inflation is coming down, the price of energy for many households and businesses will still be high.
"That is why we need to be quite cautious in our predictions regarding what 2024 can bring regarding energy-led inflation."
As well as dealing with the inflationary consequences of the Ukraine war, EU and US governments are spending directly on supporting Ukraine.
The EU is planning to spend €50bn on propping up the Ukrainian exchequer between now and 2027, while Capitol Hill is wrestling with a request from President Biden for $60bn (€55bn) in new funding for Ukraine, much of it for replacing US military equipment donated to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Although largely supported by the Senate, the funding plan is a major source of tension among Republican members of the House of Representatives, which is expected to return to the issue next month as part of ongoing budget negotiations.
For Mr Donohoe, a coordinated approach between the EU and US on funding for Ukraine is absolutely essential.
He said: "Because what Ukraine can see is the West coordination our efforts to support them in a conflict and war that is affecting us all.
"And in order to to support that war effort, in order to support their efforts to protect Europe, the European Union and our democratic values, we have a need to support their economy.
"So the European Union has a plan in place up to the end of this year of up to €18bn, and what the US and the EU are now working to do is to give certainty to the Ukrainian people regarding their economy for the next number of years.
"And politicians in the US and the EU are working very hard now to finalise an agreement regarding how we will do this."
That economic support is separate from the military aid programme, which is being discussed at the NATO foreign minsters meeting in Brussels this week.
"Indeed, because we are recognising there are many different ways in which we need to support the people of Ukraine.
"It is how they are supported through NATO with regard to their war effort, but what we're also so aware of is the need to support that economy, the awful effects the war has had on the Ukrainian state on its ability to funds the very basic public services that the people of Ukraine still need.
"The European Union and the US have made such efforts to put in place funding for last year and for this year.
"And we're now finalising discussions. Regarding how we can give clarity to the Ukrainian government regarding how we'll meet the economic needs for the next two to three years".
But will helping Ukraine survive as a state, and resist the Russian invasion, have any impact on bringing down energy prices in the West?
Mr Donohoe said: "We have to recognise all of the uncertainty that is still there. We need to be pretty humble about certain predictions that we make regarding the time ahead.
"It's really important and really valuable that energy related inflation is beginning to come down. It's had such an effect on households and businesses.
"But we need to also recognise that for so many, the price of energy is still far higher than it was before the war began.
"And that is why we in Ireland still have supports available to help with the higher cost of energy, as is the case across most of the European Union.
"But they're still there, because we need to look at how we support households and businesses across what we believe now will be a cold winter."
What then of the wider economic context and expectations for the year ahead?
Broadly speaking, most economic forecasts see the US economy doing better than expected at the start of this year, and the European economy doing worse.
Those economists think the US will achieve the elusive "soft landing", but many expect Europe to slip into recession, after a year of little or no growth.
'Very high' levels of employment expected
"My expectation is 2024 will still bring economic growth for the euro area and for the European Union, but it will bring economic growth that will be at a lower level than we otherwise would have experienced in the absence of the war," Mr Donohoe said.
"So the economy in Europe is now growing at a slow pace, but it's still growing.
"I believe if current economic and political and security conditions were to be maintained, we would avoid a recession.
"Instead what we would do is move into a period of economic growth, but it would still be quite low.
"It's not really positive. Because the last thing we want to do is see a recession unleashed in our economies with all the effect that can have on employment and living standards.
"That may be the most important thing of all, is that we're all expecting the very high levels of employment that we have in our economies to be maintained in 2024.
"And I think nearly regardless of what happens with nominal overall growth, that level of employment in Europe in Ireland and the United States is so important to maintaining living standards and maintaining social cohesion at a time of great political challenge."
The effects of the Inflation Reduction Act, and its unleashing of a vast government funded spending programme to transform the US energy system and rebuild infrastructure, are visible in the strong growth and employment numbers.
It has also pulled the US well clear of the EU in terms of growth, to such an extent that some fear it may never catch up, that it is structurally locked in a lower growth setting.
Mr Donohoe said there was a structural difference between the EU and US.
He added: "And that is to do with the cost of energy. It's to do what how they sourced their own energy and what that means and the affordability perspective of that energy.
"And it's also the case that they're making subsidies through their tax code available to support certain parts of our economy.
"Europe is taking a different route and we are supporting parts of our economies directly through supports, particularly for the green parts of our economy, particularly for those parts of our economy that are really important to the digital future.
"But we're also intervening far more from a regulatory perspective, to restructure our economies through law and through the work that the European Commission is doing.
"I believe in the very long run, that will be the right approach for the economy of the European Union, because I believe it's going to be more affordable and more sustainable for governments.
"But before we get to that point, we all need to be very vigilant to maintain our competitiveness and maintain the competitiveness of national economies, and the Irish government is doing that in the way we support the IDA."
But the bottom line for economy and finance minsters across the EU is that they need to do better on delivering economic growth, according to Mr Donohoe.
He added: "We need to have more of a focus on economic growth within the European Union.
"Despite the war, and despite the pandemic and all the challenges we face within the European Union, the medium term growth outlook, and the long term growth performance of the European Union is not where we needed to be.
"We need to look at how we can make it more competitive."
A key to delivering economic competitiveness is the development of a Europe-wide capital market, to get closer to the economy of scale and speed of movement of the US capital markets, he said.
It has been an increasing focus of the EU finance minsters, who see money piling up in European pension funds which lack the investment opportunities to deliver returns to support those pensions into the future.
"We use our savings in Europe far different to how they're used here in America, in terms of how we invest in the future, and also in terms of how those savings help us cope with economic shocks.
"And it's the kind of projects that we overestimate what we can do in the short term, but we underestimate what we can do in the long term."
But without a big, deep and rapidly moving capital market, the EU economy will continue to underperform relative to the US, where good ideas get financed faster.
