The price of stone walls better not go through the roof after the OPW spent €490,000 on a 70-metre wall around a Government office. You’d nearly build a house for that much these days. The figure is astronomical – that’s €7,000 a metre. I read that a live ESB cable and a leaking pipe were found during the works which led to delays and unforeseen costs.

Between the cost of this wall, the €335,000 Leinster House bike shed and the €1.4m security hut at the Department of Finance, The Dealer wonders if the Government is braced to pay out for the future-proofing of the country’s telecommunications network and water infrastructure that was damaged during storm Éowyn.

The Dealer knows well he is comparing an apple with a banana here, but if this sort of money is knocking around the capital for such projects, then surely some of it should flow outside of the M50 so that the lights can literally be kept on in rural Ireland.