Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the prices businesses are charged for a range of services crept up in the second quarter of this year, though they were still well below the level of a year earlier.
The CSO's services producer price index was up 0.1% from the first three months of the year, but is still 3.6% lower than in the same period last year. The annual fall is smaller than those recorded late last year and earlier this year.
The CSO says prices for architecture, engineering and technical testing services were down by 8% over the year, while prices charged for computer programming and consultancy have dropped by 6.8%.
Prices in one of the biggest categories - legal, accounting, public relations and business management consultancy - fell by 2.3% over the year, a smaller drop than the 3% in Q1.
