The bike shed story is about as clear an indication as any voter could hope to have about how the present system works, and how those responsible for managing it have managed it.
If you are looking for any idea of how this project came to be, then you will not find it in the report issued by the OPW this morning.
The Tánaiste has largely been reduced to standing in the background and nodding his approval, like a lesser Burke family member during an Enoch video.
We are either faced with a moment of breathtaking political dishonesty, or a moment of breathtaking political incompetence.
That the President is the sort of fellow who would imagine that the Mossad is out to get him is, on one level, not remotely surprising.
Until one question has been convincingly answered, one can hardly blame the public for suspecting that the Church might still have that problem, or that it might come back with a vengeance.
Those of us who opposed this bill made a good and effective argument based on rationality, logic, and an ability to persuade the public that we were correct.
Simply put, Israel cannot – as its current Government seems to believe – solve every problem with force.
As things stand, though, with the proviso that they can change quickly, the Taoiseach is going to cruise to re-election, and an unprecedented fourth consecutive term in Government for Fine Gael.
If the tax ends up putting drivers off the road, it is certainly hard to argue that it is effective.
The Minister for Health, despite his Harvard degrees and his once-touted administrative mind, cannot solve scoliosis, or waiting lists, or fix Limerick hospital. So he’s going to give your kids the pill, and call himself a progressive while doing so.
Breaking our own fiscal rules; expecting others to subsidise our defence; lecturing the rest of the EU on foreign policy. It’s a bad combination.