EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie offers you a selection of statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
4,588,252 – The number of us that there are. At least, that was the number of people there were living in the Republic of Ireland in April 2011 when the census was carried out. That’s up 8.2 per cent on the numbers from 2006, and includes individual stats like how there are 98.1 men for every 100 women in the country. (There’s much more Census stattery over here.)
1,654,208 – The number of private households in Ireland, according to the Census. At the time of writing, 756,014 of them had registered for the Household Charge, or a waiver from the €100 fee – that’s 45.7% of the total.
61 – The number of days to go before we vote in the referendum on the Fiscal Compact treaty. On Tuesday the cabinet agreed that Thursday 31 May would be the polling date on the 31st Amendment to the Constitution, allowing Ireland to ratify the deal.
19°C – The temperature recorded in some areas of Ireland last Sunday, 25 March. It’s March, and it was 19°C. That, one newspaper claimed, was hotter than the temperature at the same time in Saudi Arabia.
(30 – The approximate number of minutes it took this writer’s hairline to become reddened when sitting out in the sun last Sunday. Curse you, fair skin!)
231 - The number of jobs lost on the island of Ireland this week when the Game video game store chain went into administration earlier this week. 121 of the jobs were lost in the Republic, and another 110 in the North, as part of the closure of 277 stores between the UK and Ireland.
38 per cent – Apartments in Dublin are now worth just 38 per cent of the prices they commanded at the peak of the property market in 2007, new CSO figures suggest. Prices of houses in the capital are worth 44 per cent of their peak value, while houses outside Dublin are worth 55 per cent.
6.95 per cent – The annual interest rate that Ireland would pay right now, if it was borrowing money to be repaid 15 years from now. This week Michael Noonan announced that a government bond would be issued instead of the €3.06 billion repayment on the IBRC promissory notes. That bond will be issued at the same conditions as the market currently demands.
€1.3 billion – The price paid by the State paid to buy Irish Life from its parent company, Irish Life & Permanent, which is owned by … the State. The deal completed the bank recapitalisation process, and means the two bodies are now legally separate entities – making it easier to sell each part off.
26% – The amount by which the poorest tenth of society saw its disposable income fall in 2010.
8% – The amount by which the richest tenth of society saw its disposable income rise in 2010. Both figures come from new income statistics published this week.
20% – The proposed VAT rate that the British government wants to levy on the pasty, as part of a Budget move that has seen the food reclassified as a hot take-away food. The pasty was previously VAT-free. The move has been a political disaster in the UK, with many interpreting the move as an attack on working-class values.
165.9c – The average price for a litre of petrol in Ireland, according to data from Pumps.ie this morning. In the UK, prices had spiked to the equivalent of 169.5c as a result of a speculated fuel hauliers’ strike.
3.54 million – The number of US viewers who watched the first episodes of the new series of Mad Men, which debuted in the United States this week. That’s easily the highest audience any episode of the AMC series has won, but it’s still far lower than the ratings accrued by other shows. Fox’s New Girl, which had its worst episode of the season so far, picked up 4.96 million.
€3.75 billion – The approximate amount of debt held by Eircom, the formerly national-owned telephone provider which had an interim examiner appointed at the High Court yesterday.
$90,574,188 – The amount made by the 2004 movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy starring Will Ferrell. The cult hit has made most of its money through DVD sales, which helped to build up enough interest for a sequel to be confirmed by Burgundy himself this week.
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