Once bitten

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has decided to insulate itself from the vociferous criticism it has faced for frequent revisions in its data — not to forget the infamous goof-up of industrial production numbers in January. Since June, all its press releases begin by providing the sources of its data, which is 16 agencies from which it gathers the information. In January, CSO had had to face considerable flak when it revised growth in the index of industrial production from 6.8 per cent to 1.1 per cent after it discovered that the Directorate of Sugar had overestimated output by about three times.