EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie offers a selection of statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
€150 – The fine you get for being caught throwing chewing gum on the street. The first year of introduction of the fine, in 2012, saw a 28 per cent reduction in gum litter nationwide.
€1,506 – The approximate amount lost per minute by Ulster Bank in the first three months of 2013. The bank recorded an operating profit but had to offset massive amounts of money to take care of loans it doesn’t expect to be repaid.
€296,717.50 – The apparent amount that Ronnie O’Sullivan needs to cover school fees for his kids. The reigning world snooker champion is famously bored with the sport but agreed to participate in this year’s championship – with a top prize of £250,000 – because his kids’ schools need him to stump up. (That’s enough to keep Ulster Bank going for about 198 minutes.)
€21 million – The amount that the people of Ireland have so far paid in the Local Property Tax, according to the Exchequer’s official figures for April.
66 – The number of people who had died on Irish roads so far in 2013, as of this evening with the death of two women in Carlow. At the same time last year the figure was only 51 – meaning there’s been a 26 per cent increase in fatalities so far this year.
24 – The number of Tayto Cheese and Onion Chocolate Bars in all of Australia. And boy, people are keen to get them…
28 per cent – The amount by which suicide rates among middle-class Americans rose between 1999 and 2010.
34 per cent – The proportion by which robbery, extortion and hijacking offences increased between 2007 and 2011, according to CSO data out this week.
63 – The number of years you’d have to travel back in time to find an April as windy as the one of 2013.
300,000 - The estimated number of households in Ireland which have tracker mortgages, where the interest rate is linked to the ECB’s basic rate. The cut in the ECB’s rate is good news for them – but bad news for around 400,000 non-tracker households whose rates could be forced up in order for banks to cover their losses.
100 – The drop in the number on the Live Register in April 2013. Ireland still has a 14 per cent unemployment rate.
3,726 – The estimated number of lives saved through the introduction of a ban on smoking in Irish workplaces.
74,500 – The capacity of the smallest stadium Ireland will play in in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff will host Ireland’s clash with France, while the boys in green will also take to the field in Wembley (90,000) and at the Olympic Stadium (80,000).
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