The biggest issue with the State preparing to pump another €30 million of public money into the staging of the 2027 Ryder Cup is not really the money. Galling as it may be that we are subsidising what may as well be a vast ad campaign for the super-luxury Adare Manor hotel and golf course, there’s a case to be made that the financial benefits may outweigh the public costs – which, according to last week’s report in The Irish Times, are now set to reach at least €88 million.

No: the truly depressing thing about the Ryder Cup project is that unlike, say, treating children with scoliosis or providing assessments for children with autism or tackling the poverty that now affects one in every five children, it will be achieved flawlessly.

Whatever must be done will be done. Government departments will work together seamlessly. Local and national authorities will pull out all the stops. Every fibre of our collective being will be strained to deliver this great event. We will all look at it in wonder. And yet again get that slightly nauseated feeling that this is what the State looks like when it can be bothered to get up off its behind.

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