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EVERY SATURDAY ON TheJournal.ie, we bring you a selection of the statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
170: The number of hostages that were taken by terrorists at the Radisson Blu in Mali on Friday.
€535,000: The amount of money the head of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA)’s salary package was worth in 2013. He stepped down from his position this week amid controversy.
€75,000: The amount of money a woman tried to sue Lidl for after she put some groceries in a buggy.
0°: The temperature some places in Ireland were expected to hit on Friday night as the first real cold of the winter set it and Met Éireann issued a weather warning.
132: The number of people who died in terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday. The suspected ringleader of the attacks was reportedly killed in a raid on Thursday.
$2.9bil: The amount that Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, is being valued at as it goes public. Tinder’s CEO gave a controversial interview this week.
11,955: The number of residential housing units that building has begun on so far this year. While only 200 council houses will be built in all of 2015
€50,000: The amount of money a page is trying to raise for an Irish woman who was hospitalised after her hair got stuck in a farm conveyor belt in Australia.
8: The age of a boy who was dropped to school by two thieves who had stolen his mother’s car.
16: The number of months in prison a man who defecated in in a Garda interview room was sentenced to.
48,000: The number of homes that were left without electricity after Storm Barney swept through Ireland.
5: The number of Irish shopping centres that were bought for a whopping €175 million this week.
3: The number of times Eamon Gilmore says the Government was close to collapse while he served as Tánaiste.
€1,150: The amount of money Paul Murphy spent on his property tax bill.
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No one seems interested in the basic function of farming, creating food.!Any suggestions on what we should eat when all the rewilding is complete!
@Tommy Lennon: Nearly all the food we produce is exported though, so rewilding vast swathes of land wouldn’t affect our access to food.
@Tommy Lennon: Heather!! This hogwash is really going overboard. 5.2 Million people have to eat something!!
Few years ago they couldn’t give away enough money to reclaim land, bogs were drained, ditches bulldozed to make fields bigger now give more money to put it back, what next
@Andy Murphy: it’s as if priorities can change over time.
Mad, Ted!
@Ciaran Foster: or money changes hands ?
Totally agree. I bought the book from Eoghan back in December as a present but could not stop reading it.. great eye opener when walking around any nature area and looking at our human shaped environment.
Bought the book. Eoghan knows what he is talking about, we should listen
Lord save us from this stuff, so we return good farmland to the so called wild bush,
I have known so called farmers like this and they were to lazy to work their land and produce food, this was their cop out for not working their inheritance farm,
The boyo who wrote this article seems like one of them.
@Ned: You sound bitter. Were they “to” lazy to learn to spell also?
Every day I read or hear about another demand from the “Green Agenda”. Previously I would have considered myself environmentally conscious but I have rapidly become less so due to the polarised views presented.
More tree planting, ditch fertiliser (go organic) , drop bovines and ovines 20% in favor of grains and vegetables. Pay farmers to do so. Targets met… Simple..and it will be done.
Folks, do yourselves a favour and read his book.
Great book, highly recommend!
I’ve no problem to pay farmers to rewind their farms
But let’s house the homeless fix our health first eh?
We should change our approach to land use. A farm should be an inclosed area where sheep / goat / cows won’t go outside to graze on every little tree sapling. Same for sikka deer that has gone out of control in recent years. Nature and biodiversity has no chance in this country atm.
There are 8 Billion people on this planet that have to be fed every day and this idiot wants us to grow weeds. Enough of this nonsense. No matter what we do on this little island it will make little or no difference to global warming. We’re not the cause of the problem, but we could help alleviate the consequences.
@Liam Dunne: well we are the cause of the problem, rich countries like ireland are the ones who consume the most and produce the most carbon per capita, we still contribute to the overall problem
@Liam Dunne: It’s not about global warming, it’s about biodiversity. Read the article, then try reading some books.
We need all houses to be carbon neutral…citizens deserve at least cheap/free heating.
I’ve noticed a lot of hedgerows getting torn out of grazing fields near me over the last 2-3 winters.
It makes little sense, the farmer only gains a few square meters of space. Then any farm animals in the fields lose shelter from the elements during wind, rain & heat.
And of course nature loses its last piece of wilderness on the edge of the field.
Is there some sort of subsidy to do this sort of work or why is it being done?
So you want us to pay farmers to not work on the least viable part of their land. Sure.
@Dan Dare: they would need money to maintain fences to keep deer, sheep & goats off the land while it recovers.
Kill an extra quarter of a million cows a year and rewild as much land as possible . What will people eat if this goes ahead ? And there is no point in saying that we export most of what we produce as if that makes its consumption somewhere else on the planet irrelevant
Unbelievable, I grew up in a large farming community. Farmers are so so wealthy. The new generation of farmers are splashing the cash, massive mansions, big 4×4′s, new cars etc. Some small farmers may struggle a little like the rest of us. But the cash the big dairy guys are rolling in is unbelievable!
have your say