Interest Rate - Stay on Variable or go with Fixed Rate

Hi All

Just looking for some feedback/advise on the situation Im in at the moment. Bank have sent me a letter about my mortgage saying that my 1year Variable rate mortgage is up for renewal.

They sent out a list of alternative like 2, 5 year fixed rates. I have the option to stay as I am on the Variable rate (which is the cheapest option by 150euro a month)

My Question is :
Is it the time to go with a fix rate or should I stay with the variable option. DO you think interest rates will start to increase in the next 12 months? Im researching this myself but would also like to get some opionions on this aswell.

Thanks
Gary

Am in the same position myself - am with AIB and my interest rate (Variable) has just gone up to near 3%. They have options to fix as :
2 yrs - 3.25%
3 yrs - 3.65%
4 yrs - 3.95%
5 yrs - 4.25%

I'm not sure about fixing for > 3 years, as hopefully if the market picks up we'll be moving elsewhere, so there may be no benefit. Its hard for me to see that the ECB OR AIB won't push their rates up by > 0.25% in the next 2 years. Know it might not go up immediately, and my increased payments start immediately, but does my logic sound fair that - fixing for the next 2 years, for only 0.25%, which is something like €65 a month for us, which we could handle ok. To mitigate against taking any bigger hit in those 2 years.

Is a tricky one - any pointers?