corruption...

Ireland just ranked 17th on the annual poll of how corrupt we perceive our countries to be. That's the 17th LEAST corrupt country in the world!  Germany ranked 16th, which is nice.  The interesting thing is, I obviously read the Irish news to keep track of what's going on at home, and every day there's something new about some minister being exposed for taking backhanders from some company.  Here in Germany I get the same impression too.  Stoiber, who is the minister in charge of Bavaria has reputedly gotten something out of the decision to build a maglev train between Munich airport and central station.  Every day, they're bitching about the ministers here too.  So, I wonder just how accurate this poll really is?  From their web site :   "The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. It is a composite index, a poll of polls, drawing on corruption-related data from expert and business surveys carried out by a variety of independent and reputable institutions."  Linkage.