For such a massive investment, we’re getting a very bad return

IF you had a spare €200,000 lying around the bank account and thought it could make a handy little earner with a bit of prudent investment, what would you do with it?

Apart from the fact that most of us do not have that kind of money sloshing lazily around an account, either at home or abroad, you might think the question is academic. It's not.

That sum is what it costs us to keep in luxury every one of the 166 TDs in the Dáil, or, to put it another way, that institution and the Seanad will cost us €42 million this year.