People in Ireland want to know where our money goes. The answer is depressing |
There is nothing as expensive as spending money instead of investing it. Renters in Ireland know this intuitively, as high rent is what precludes them from being able to afford a deposit to buy in the first place. The arithmetic of poorness is universal and merciless. You end up permanently paying more for worse outcomes, because you never made the upfront investment that would have made things cheaper in the long run.
One recent headline illustrated the cost of this mentality in the Irish State: the Government is considering writing off part of young doctors’ student debts if they agree to remain working in Ireland, because too many are emigrating to Australia.
At an estimated institutional cost of €25,000 to €30,000 per year, a five-to-six year medical degree represents a public investment of €125,000-€180,000 per doctor. This does not include the cost of clinical placements, internship, and early postgraduate training.
In any normally functioning country, that investment creates a reciprocal obligation, whereby the State subsidises your training before you serve the public system that paid for it. This is the basis of medical workforce planning in France, in Denmark and in Australia itself.
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But Ireland has built a system so........