I am well used to our Masters throwing our money around like it were confetti.

There is the scandal of the new Children’s Hospital which was originally costed at €800 million but is now expected to cost in the region of €2 billion. No sweat though – it’s only the tax payer’s money so who cares?

There is the National Broadband Plane that is expected to cost around €3 billion but it has been estimated that it could be done for as little as €1 billion. Let’s go with the higher figure though – it’s only the tax payer’s money so who cares?

There are of course numerous examples, but I came across a simple little example.

Dáil centenary site cost €180,000 to build but fails to draw visitors.

Now I know list a little bit about web sites, so this little nugget intrigued me.

it was revealed that the design cost of the website was €33,075, while the build cost was €152,478

This bit confuses me a bit. They already have their own servers so there is no additional cost there. Doubtless they also get a free domain name but even if they pay full whack [+VAT] it shouldn’t cost more than around €15. The software they used is a thing called Silver Stripe [a sort of inferior WordPress] which is free, as in no cost, freebie, FREE. I downloaded it myself and installed it. Simples. A child could do it.

So how did they manage to throw €152,478 away?

Then there is the design cost. Anyone with a knowledge of CSS should be able to whip up a design in a couple of days, even assuming a picky client. €33,075 seems quite generous for a weeks work. I’m in the wrong business [well, actually in the right business but obviously not charging enough].

So what do they get for that?

12,295 users visited the site up to 23 June this year.

Hmmm. That figure is meaningless unless there is something to compare it with?

This site:

52,669 users visited the site up to 27 June this year.

Now this site has been around a lot longer, I grant, but they have pushed their on Twitter to over 10,000 readers. And my site cost nothing. How the blind fuck can they justify spending 185 [and a half] grand on that site?

They just love throwing our money around

And I won’t even start on the €10,000 for fucking hats!