A glance at the week that was
The numbers
$190bnThe amount US investment in Ireland is currently worth, about a quarter of Irish GDP, according to the US Chamber of Commerce.
€411,000The total payments given to the outgoing VHI chief executive Jimmy Tolan last year, according to the company's annual accounts.
1 in 3The proportion of maths teachers who have no third-level qualification or other certificates in the subject, according to a survey by the Teaching Council.
€12,180Dental work "expenses" submitted by former Irish Nationwide chief executive Michael Fingleton. The bank has queried these and other expenses.
1,100The number of HSE West staff out sick every day, costing the service €5 million per month.
100
The number of years since wild salmon are last thought to have appeared in the Tolka river in Dublin, after they began reproducing in the once-heavily polluted river.
We now know
A Jack B Yeats painting, A Fair Day, which was bought for £250 in 1944 and once hung in the office of Éamon de Valera, sold for a record €1 million in James Adam & Sons.
Scientists are working on a pill that can keep you sober even after drinking large amounts of alcohol.
Clothing giant Reebok has agreed to refund $25 million to consumers who bought shoes from a range that claimed to tone muscles.
And you thought the world was ruled by giant green lizards
The BBC defended one of its guests, the financial trader Alessio Rastani, this week, after an interview on the BBC News channel in which he spoke candidly about turning a profit from the recession. Rastani also opined on the market’s ambivalence about efforts to end the financial turmoil in Europe, declaring: “The governments don’t rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world. Goldman Sachs does not care about this rescue package. Neither do the big funds.”
The BBC said it was satisfied that Rastani was not a hoaxer, following speculation that he was a member of the activist-prankster group The Yes Men.
