Funding ceiling must be lowered as election spending gets out of hand

I HAVE a friend who went to a posh Munster boarding school back in the 1970s. When the lights went out every night in the dorm the competition would always begin with the words: "My father has two Zetors."

No wonder one of our founding myths is the Black Bull of Cooley, wherein a Co. Louth couple tore the country apart over whose bull was the biggest.

We’re still at it, aren’t we? You would think a country in which most households have had to cut the living daylights out of their budget would not be subjected to ostentatious displays of wealth at election time. But not a bit of it. I have a path worn to the green bin with all the flyers. There’s barely an urban lamp-post which doesn’t have three posters on it and one of them nearly takes the eye out of my 15-year-old as he cycles to school. I kayaked down the Liffey at the weekend for a bit of head-space and was faced with a building wrapped in a gigantic election poster.