Lies, Damn Lies, And Statistics

Bank records failed to indicate a large amount of sterling being exchanged on the day that Bertie Ahern lodged a large amount of money into his account. He said he was given sterling by friends who were helping him out financially when he split with his wife. The tribunal suggests that he could not have been given sterling notes. Who was wrong, so? The bank? Mr. Ahern believes that to be the case, as his recollection of events include a pile of sterling notes being converted to punts. Who knows what clerical errors the bank employees might have made, to not have records of all the sterling that Mr. Ahern is sure he dropped off with them.

How about the transaction of 5 December, 1994? If you use the most generous rate of exchange possible, you can calculate the value of the sum lodged as exactly $45,000. That's a lot of American currency, even if it was all in hundreds. How about that one? In theory, yes, it is mathematically possible to arrive at that value. In reality, unfortunately, there is one element missing. The records of Allied Irish Bank do not contain any evidence of an exchange of American greenbacks. No one brought 45,000 Yankee dollars to the bank to be exchanged for Irish pounds. Who is wrong this time? Those who toted up columns of numbers and came up with other numbers?

So there it stands. Mr. Ahern says he exchanged X amount of sterling but the bank records indicate that only Y amount of sterling came in. The tribunal calculated that $45,000 could have been exchanged on day Q, but the bank records do not support the hypothesis.

No matter to the Opposition, however. Enda Kenny is warming up his vocal cords, getting ready to sing out for a vote of no confidence in the taoiseach. Eamon Gilmore, freshly elected as Labour leader and feeling frisky, doesn't want to wait for the Mahon Tribunal to prepare their report, not when it could take them up to two years to draw their conclusions. He's ready to lead the charge come Friday, to confront the taoiseach about his "convoluted" testimony.

Has anyone noticed that drug traffickers are at war with one another, shooting at random like it's the American Wild West? Any talk in the Dail about the lack of adequate health care, not enough beds, that sort of thing? And the slow-down in the economy, the need to scale back on government spending, any discussions ongoing about reining in waste? I thought not.