Madam, – I am afraid that your correspondent David Bloch has, in today's opinion piece (May 6th)when writing "statistics don't lie", lost sight of the trap well identified by Mark Twain. "Figures often beguile me," he wrote in Chapters from My Autobiography, "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"
This is surely so when producing statistics to “prove” that Ireland is richer and doing better than the UK, Germany and Japan. This gap is never obvious to visitors to Dublin from those countries. The statistical illusion is partly explained by the uniquely big negative gap caused by financial repatriations between Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Product in Ireland’s case. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I sincerly hope Ireland media Inc will take heed from Mr David Bloch’s opinion piece (May 6th). A little more balance in reporting some of the positives within the Irish economy would be welcome and could help to improve vital consumer sentiment. Perhaps George Lee’s decision to exit RTÉ is a good start! –
Yours, etc,