Ronan McGreevyis both baffled and bemused by the county-by-county statistics
IT WAS Benjamin Disraeli who coined the immortal phrase "there are lies, damned lies and statistics".
A benign interpretation of the Institute of Public Health in Ireland's (IPH) first review of health on a county-by- county basis is that the latter is the reason for the extraordinary discrepancy between the life expectancy among men in the neighbouring counties of Leitrim and Roscommon.
As a native of Carrick-on- Shannon, which straddles both counties, I'm utterly baffled and bemused as is everyone else in the two counties as to how Roscommon men have the longest life expectancy in the country and Leitrim men the shortest.
The two counties share a border divided by the River Shannon and a passion for Gaelic Football which manifests itself in fierce rivalry from time to time, but in many other respects are completely similar counties.
Both are largely rural with a good quality of life and have experienced more than a fair share of emigration. Roscommon has a county hospital, which its natives have fought bitterly to retain, but Leitrim people, though not having a hospital of their own, are well served by Sligo General Hospital.
Yet, the life expectancy for Roscommon men is 76.9 and for Leitrim men 72.8 years.
How then do you explain that Roscommon men live nearly four years longer than their neighbours in Leitrim? Does this mean that Leitrim men are going to be fleeing west across the Shannon to escape the Grim Reaper?
"It can't be right, the counties are too similar," says Roscommon-South Leitrim TD Frank Feighan who has offices in both counties. "I just don't know where they got these figures from. It goes to show you can prove anything with statistics."
The IPH put out the figures last week without explaining such an obvious discrepancy. As journalists, we're as bad as the rest at manipulating statistics and taking them at face value.
Perhaps the truest thing that can be said about them is that 95 per cent of statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt even when it comes to matters of life and death.