Holding politicians to account for how they spend our money is the job of the Oireachtas. It is also meat and drink to the media. Who doesn’t like a juicy story about the squandering of taxpayer money?

But there are times when it feels like we have taken it all a bit too far. It is hard to believe there are too many other European countries where the decision to spend €1 million – less than 0.001 per cent of the national budget – on a secure meeting room in Government Buildings to enable communication with other governments would constitute news. Never mind warrant full-on parliamentary scrutiny.

It is even harder to imagine the leader of the country would appear before a parliamentary committee to justify the expense. But last week Michéal Martin duly turned up at the select committee on finance to explain why he needed to be able to talk to other leaders from Government Buildings without the risk of bad actors eavesdropping.

It was an absurd moment. In truth the question the committee should have been asking the Taoiseach was why he didn’t get one of these rooms sooner. But that would not chime with the tenor of these........

© The Irish Times