Two interesting bits of Irish news yesterday. Research released Wednesday shows that in Britain the average company makes a profit of some €22,500 per employee. This compares to Irish companies who on average make a profit per employee of €45,800. This is after transfer pricing and other disortions were stripped out.

Is that why the security services on behalf of the British government illegally and secretly monitored every telephone, fax and email to and from the UK and Ireland for seven years. Using laws which the British government insisted were necessary to combat a growing threat from terrorism they undertook mass covert surveillance. Do they want the secret of high profits or do they think Osama is hiding in the caves of the West coast? Think he went that way…

In a landmark ruling yesterday the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British government’s scheme of external surveillance was not “in accordance with the law”. Of course the British government tacitly allows the Americans to do the same to you.