A glance at the week that was
We now know
Marathon runner Martin Fagan has received a two-year doping ban from Athletics Ireland and the Irish Sports Council.
Occupy London protesters must leave their camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral, a British court has ruled.
The numbers
22.7mThe number of passengers who travelled through Ireland's three main airports in 2011, a rise of 1 per cent on the figure for 2010
555The minimum number of public beds in community nursing units to be shut down this year as a result of HSE budget cuts
11The number of Irish couples questioned in Mexico by police investigating alleged child trafficking
670,846The number of people who attended Dublin's O2 venue last year, 53,972 more than went to New York's Madison Square Garden
4The average number of people declared bankrupt in Northern Ireland every day since April, according to Minister for Enterprise Arlene Foster
76The increase, in per cent, in the number of Visa card transactions in Ireland last year, according to Visa Europe
A bill to cause a relapse
An outpatient recovering from pneumonia was startled to receive a bill for $44.8 million from a New York hospital. Twenty-eight-year-old Alexis Rodriguez was one of several patients overcharged because of a computer error that printed the invoice number where the amount should have gone.
“To send out a lot of bills with numbers that big – someone could have had a heart attack,” Rodriguez was quoted as saying. The billing company PHY Services has since requested that patients ignore the bills.