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Prime Numbers
Transport, texts and telecommuting: The week in numbers
How many SMS messages are sent in Ireland every second? And how many times could Greece buy Sergio Aguero?
EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie offers a selection of statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
13.15 per cent – The proportion of Labour’s TDs who have voted against the party since the current Dáil was first convened. Having elected 37 TDs in February 2011, and winning the subsequent by-election in Dublin West, five TDs have broken ranks. The latest is the party chairman, Colm Keaveney.
2.57631579 – The number of times you could buy Manchester City’s striker Sergio Aguero, with the money lost by his club last season. The Argentine cost the club a reputed £38 million, significantly less than the £97.9 million that the Citizens lost in their title-winning season last year.
428.344773 – The number of times you could buy Sergio Aguero with the money that Greece had knocked off its national debt this week.
1.9 per cent – The amount by which the price of transport fell in November, according to CSO figures this week. The decline can be attributed to the cost of fuel, and helped to see the overall cost of living fall by 0.4 per cent in November.
10 per cent – The annual rate of interest you’d get if you were willing to become a Bank of Ireland junior bondholder this week. The bank raised €250 million by selling new subordinated ‘junior’ bonds, in an auction that attracted over three times more demand than there were bonds on sale.
Five times – Irish people who have a bit too much to drink at their Christmas parties are five times more likely to kiss another colleague than they are to kiss their boss. 10 per cent of tipsy workers said they’d lobbed the gob on a colleague, but only 2 per cent had kissed the boss.
€2,000 – The amount that people are being told they can receive as a tax refund from the Department of Finance.
383.61 - The average number of text messages sent every second in Ireland in the third quarter of 2012. A ComReg report out this week said there were 3,049,241,000 texts were sent in the months July, August and September – that’s 664.6 for every man, woman child.
1.083 - The number of mobile phones held by the average man, woman or child in Ireland. The population is just under 4.6 million – while there are 4.9 million mobiles in the country. (That’s not including mobile broadband subscriptions and tablet-only SIM cards.)
-€250 – The amount they’re actually getting. The Department says the calls are fake and it would never call people directly about tax issues. (And besides, tax issues would be handled by the Revenue Commissioners, wouldn’t they?)
227 – The number of confirmed cases of chlamydia recorded at the Dublin Well Woman centre by the end of October. That’s 21 per cent more than had been diagnosed in all of 2011, and comes with two months to spare.
14 – The estimated number by which Dublin’s homeless population has grown between last Christmas and this.
4.69 per cent – The proportion of the Irish workforce who worked from home in 2011. Remember the predictions about the rise of telecommuting? Not so much. In 2006, the same figure was 5.58 per cent.
Want more? Check out our previous ‘In numbers’ pieces>
