Current Account: It has been said correctly about the Moriarty tribunal's inquiry into the 1995 second mobile phone licence competition that the competition itself was run much more quickly than the inquiry it later gave life to.
The former was measured in months whereas the latter has been measured in years.
In an analogous way, the tribunal's inquiry into the stg£4.3 million purchase by Denis O'Brien of the Doncaster Rovers stadium in 1998 looks like it could cost more than the stadium did all those years ago. After a year or so of private inquiry, the tribunal opened public hearings in 2004 but they were interrupted by a challenge by Mr O'Brien that went all the way to the Supreme Court, but failed to prevent the inquiry going ahead.
Now the public inquiry is in full session and the number of lawyers involved is impressive. On one day last week, when Mr O'Brien's former accountant Aidan Phelan was giving evidence, there were 14 legal eagles present, over and above the tribunal's own legal team.
The number of lawyers representing the O'Brien family totalled nine on one afternoon, with the team including a number of solicitors from William Fry.
Who ultimately will pay for all this - the taxpayer or Mr O'Brien - will be decided in the wake of the tribunal's report on Mr Lowry, which is pencilled in for later this year.
Candidates must like to fly . . . and swim
It's not such a glamorous life being a "trolley dolly" these days, as Ryanair's practical approach to its new recruitment campaign for cabin crew unnervingly shows.
Gone are the days where airlines required their cabin crew to look like Amazonian Avon ladies with manicures and the manners to match, rewarding them with travel perks and secure jobs.
Instead Ryanair's website implores people who are "bored of nine-to-five" to apply for fixed-term agency contracts with "excellent earnings based on your efforts" - around €1,400 a month after tax in year one. In exchange, it simply asks them to be "hard working, flexible and willing to operate on a shift roster", as well as a mere 5'2" in height (with weight "in proportion").
An ability to recognise investigative journalists secretly filming warts-and-all documentaries for Channel 4 isn't specified, but there is one other requirement: an "ability to swim"!
Bank's rugby withdrawal
One of the more successful domestic sports sponsorships of recent times will terminate at the end of the current rugby season.
For the past six years, Bank of Scotland (Ireland) has been the main sponsor of the Leinster rugby team. It has been a mutually beneficial exercise. Leinster have been glad of the solid financial support that allowed them to compete - most especially when it came to persuading one of the most gifted back lines in rugby to stay with the province.
For Bank of Scotland, the exposure it received as Leinster rugby experienced its most successful and high-profile spell on both the domestic and international scenes was of almost incalculable benefit as it sought to break into the Irish banking market.
After six harmonious years, one would would think that, even in parting, the two sides would be as much a complementary pair as D'Arcy and O'Driscoll in Leinster's midfield. Strange then to see the decidely backhanded compliment paid the team by Bank of Scotland (Ireland)'s head of marketing, Rosaleen Kelly.
Commenting on the decision, she said: "Bank of Scotland (Ireland) has grown into a truly national banking brand and we now need a major sponsorship to support that."
Current Account wonders whether that means the vibrant Leinster team is seen as little more than a minor backwater outfit in the bank's boardroom. Fortunately, the sponsors of the other Irish provincial teams - Toyota (Munster) and Bank of Ireland (both Ulster and Connacht) - don't take the same view.
