EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie offers a selection of statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
€300,000 – The approximate amount in pay and allowances that executives at Bus Éireann will give up, as part of an agreement with staff unions to end strikes and agree the implementation of cost-saving measures.
€778,000 – The outstanding amount owed to ACC Bank by Jim Corr. The musician told the High Court he was “not good with numbers”.
€6.9 million – The amount that VHI Healthcare was charged by hospitals (money that was later recouped) after it emerged that the insurer had been charged for housing a patient in a private ward – when in fact the patient was on a trolley and hadn’t yet been given a bed.
0.12 per cent – The annualised interest rate paid by Ireland to borrow €500 million for three months in an auction this week. That’s well under the 0.19 per cent paid for similar loans a month ago.
5 per cent – The proportion of Irish people who do not own a television. As Joey from Friends once remarked: “What’s all your furniture pointed at?”
9.5 – The differential between the earnings of the richest 10 per cent of the population, averaged across 30 OECD countries, and the poorest 10 per cent – that is, the richest 10 per cent earn 9.5 times more than the poorest 10 per cent every year.
1.15 – The number of alphabets after the name of the State’s chief medical officer. Peter Mathews remarked at yesterday’s abortion hearings that Dr Anthony Holohan had 30 letters after his name, thanks to his array of professional qualifications.
97 - The age of the oldest known survivor of the Magdalene Laundries, Madge O’Connell, who died this week.
30 – The approximate number of women who want to be President of Iran. Their hopes were dashed when an electoral official said women were ineligible for the country’s highest elected office.
90/1 – The odds a punter can get with Paddy Power on Chelsea getting a 0-0 draw with Everton tomorrow, with Arsenal beating Newcastle 2-1. Those results would force the Premier League to hold an unprecedented playoff to decide which side finishes third, and qualifies automatically for the Champions League: both sides would have finished with the same number of points, goal difference and goals scored.
30,000 – The approximate number of people who were returning property tax reforms online this week, ahead of the deadline for online returns.
771,301 – The number of calls made to Childline in 2012, according to the service’s annual report. The agency said it could not respond to over 30 per cent because of a shortage of resources.
1 – The number of managers, before this week, who had won the UEFA Europa League (or its predecessor, the UEFA Cup) with two different clubs. Rafa Benitez’s wins with Valencia and Chelsea bring him into a club inhabited only by our own Giovanni Trapattoni
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