EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie offers a selection of statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
About 300 – The number of complaints received by the Data Protection Commissioner over the auto-dial facility that was used to send anti-abortion messages to landline telephone users.
48 million – The number of bottles of Jameson sold every year, according to Pernod Ricard’s latest figures. The world just loves Irish whiskey…
1,462 – The number of black sacks of leaves used to create this pile of leaves – which its underemployed creators reckon makes it the world’s biggest.
867 – The number of bills passed by the Oireachtas since the Supreme Court’s ruling in the X Case was handed down in March 1992, underlining a shortcoming in Irish legislation on abortion. All but four (the defeated referendums on mental health and abortion, Nice, Lisbon, and Oireachtas inquiries) have become Acts.
88 to 53 – The margin by which the Dáil voted to remove a call for immediate legislation for X from a Sinn Féin motion tabled this week.
€416,000 - The amount of excise duty the Exchequer might have lost, had contraband cigarettes and alcohol found in Louth this week managed to make it to market.
27 – The number of staff at guaranteed banks who are on salaries of over €500,000 a year, according to data published this week. €500,000 is the government’s pay cap for bank staff.
€37,850 – The maximum amount that a TD can receive for travel and accommodation allowances each year.
€25,400 – The amount TDs can receive each year in the ‘public representation’ allowance (intended to cover the costs of running a constituency office, and so on). Both types of payment could be abolished following a report by the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee which found that the allowances system was no longer fit for purpose.
14 years, three months and 11 days – The length of Alan Cantwell’s career at TV3. The 5:30 newsreader is to leave the station at the end of the year, having fronted its very first news bulletin (with Grainne Seoige) when the channel launched on September 20, 1998.
€3.2 million – The amount ‘siphoned off’ by State Street through unauthorised commission on the sale of the NTMA’s assets, according to the latter’s chief executive John Corrigan. State Street was to be paid a fixed fee for its services, but is said to have taken 7c for every €100 raised through the sale of assets worth €4.7 billion.
22 – The number of YouTube videos that the Russian authorities had tried to block access to. Let’s just say… it didn’t quite work out.
2.7 – The magnitude, on the Moment scale (they don’t use the Richter Scale any more!), of an earthquake off the coast of Co Donegal earlier this week.
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