Well it’s a Thursday rant having listened to the radio on the way into work this morning. Why is it in this country at the moment that everything seems to cost Eur 1 Billion? Recent events have seen things like the Luas project budget stretch to almost Eur 1bn, the national deficit was almost Eur 1bn, the ESB borrows Eur 1bn to fund their new strategy and now the LaFoy commission investigating child abuse is running at an estimated cost of Eur 50,000 per day and is believed to reach the sum of Eur 1bn upon completion. Have we reached a point in our economy where we simply round costs off to the nearest billion? Why is this figure so prominent at the moment and why does everything cost Eur 1bn? A billion questions but I doubt there will ever be an answer.