EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie offers a selection of statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
€960 billion – The amount that the EU and its various institutions will be spending between 2014 and 2020, under the terms of a draft budget agreed by leaders over Thursday and Friday. That’s a cut in real terms compared to the previous seven years – and marks the first time a European budget will be smaller than the preceding one..
34.1 – The age of the average man getting married in Ireland in 2010 – among the oldest it’s ever been. The average bride is 32.0 years old.
€12,000 – The amount Ireland has to pay in fines to the European Commission every day, because of its failure to bring in the appropriate septic tank inspection standards. This is because although the necessary laws are in place, the Environmental Protection Agency plans for inspections have not yet been published.
491 – The number of minutes between the Dáil beginning its debate of the legislation to liquidate IBRC, through the appointment of a special liquidator, and the public news that the Bill had been signed into law by President Higgins.
34 per cent – The volume of Irish voters who wouldn’t know how to vote if an election was held tomorrow, according to an Irish Times opinion poll today. Of those who would, in a Lazarus-like turnaround, Fianna Fáil would be the most popular party – though this was taken before news of the IBRC deal, which saves…
€1 billion – The amount (to the closest €25 million) that the IBRC liquidation will save in Budget 2014, opening the possibility of being able to avoid some of the extra taxes and spending cuts. The next Budget was due to make adjustments of €3.1 billion – with €2bn in spending cuts and €1.1bn in new taxes – but some of this could now be avoided.
40 years – How long it’ll take to pay the debts of the former Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide under the IBRC arrangements. On the update, though, replacing the promissory notes with long-term government bonds means dramatically cutting down on the short-term annual cost of keeping it alive.
91 years – The length of time since the first women were admitted to Magdalene Laundries under the watch of the Irish state. This week Martin McAleese’s report outlined for the first time the extent of the State’s involvement in the Laundry system.
89 – The age of the oldest woman known to have been admitted to a Laundry. The youngest was aged 9.
10,012 – The total number of women who are documented to have entered eight of the ten Laundries covered in the report. Of those, 879 died while in there.
476 – The number of women who spent ten years or more in a Laundry.
14 – The number of TDs who were either absent or abstained in the final Dáil vote to wind up IBRC. They included Peter Mathews, who was said to be too ill to vote, despite him having spoken during the night’s earlier Dáil debate on not making the next promissory note repayment.
100 per cent – The reported quantity of horse meat content in a Findus beef lasagne product tested by British authorities. Officially, the authorities will only say they had at least 60 per cent horse meat content. Products from the same French beef supplier, Comigel, were tested by Aldi (who sold them in Ireland) and were found to contain at least 30 per cent horse.
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