Madam, - The older I get the more I'm intrigued by the way public funding works.
I marvel at how easy it seems to be to come up with the money for costly project over-runs or poor financial management. And then I wonder how I can't do that with my own household spending. I don't seem to be able to turn to anyone - the Government, the State, the EU, banks - if I can't pay.
I look at the relative ease with which €500 million, or a billion, or maybe even two billion, will be found for the long-running fiasco of the nursing home charges. And I see how easy it seems to be to find an extra €9 billion to pay for crazy cost over-runs on road projects.
I look at that cock-eyed over-run for the Kilkenny Drainage Scheme and weir for salmon to jump over - not to mention having to find €50 million for the electronic voting system that doesn't work and wasn't tested but still has to be stored, or an extra few million (just like that) to dig out the Abbey Theatre. No doubt there many other example. And then I think of the businesses, contractors, consultants, who have benefited so handsomely from all these "over-runs".
Thank God there is the Government, the State, and maybe the old reliable EU to cough up the money for all these. And there was I, fearful that somehow or other it would be the stupid old taxpayer who would somehow end up paying for them. In the meantime, whoever managed the costly over-run cock-ups will still be around to manage the next series of cocked-up projects. - Yours, etc,
E. McDONALD, Blackrock, Co Dublin.