You couldn’t really sum up this country’s entirely fake politics better than by simply understanding the row that is currently ongoing about whether Irish students will pay College Registration fees of €2,000 or €3,000 this coming autumn.
The cost of reducing the fees from the larger number to the smaller one will (I use that word advisedly) cost the Irish state about €100million. That is a sum that would be a life-changing euromillions win for any one person but amounts to pocket change for the Irish Government. To put the figure in context, the budget surplus for this year will be €8.5billion euros. To put that in the context of a household, imagine having €8,500 in the bank and spending €100 on a night out. We’re not talking some massively extravagant spend here. The state will survive either way.
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