Record falls in the price of crude oil had finally trickled down to Irish pumps, with the average driver paying around €40 less per month for fuel - but it looks like this downward trend is ending.

Motoring correspondent with the Sunday Independent, Geraldine Herbert discussed the issue with Newstalk Breakfast.

She says that Irish petrol costs are exposed to a lot of external factors:

"Petrol retailers in this country are very vulnerable to any currency issues, because they operate on very tight margins."

With the euro depreciating against the dollar, prices in Ireland are rising again.

This upward-trend is set to continue. It looks like crude oil prices have bottomed out - and are beginning to rise.

Ms Herbert warns: "When they were coming down we didn't see the decrease as quickly - when they increase we will see that impact."

If that isn't bad enough the Irish Independent is reporting that a spike in insurance frauds is increasing motorists' premiums - the impact of this could cost individual drivers as much as €50 a year:

"There's a growing trend - fraudsters are going around and intentionally causing accidents so that they can make bogus insurance claims."

She says that they buy cheap cars, cause accidents - and then make exaggerated insurance claims.