This is an eight-figure recurring commitment. It represents the total lifetime income tax contribution of well over 100 ordinary Irish workers per year. That's not an abstract, it's decades of PAYE from real people.

Public finance is about marginal allocation. Many high-impact projects sit in or below this band:

* St Christopher’s Hospice rebuild in Cavan – €13.5 MM

* Cork Educate Together Secondary School in Douglas – €45 MM

* NAS Ambulance Centre in New Ross – €0.5 MM

* CAMHS national annual opex budget – €180 MM

So these aren't symbolic sums. They're the difference between capacity and waiting lists.

“Money flows back into the economy” applies equally to nurses, SNAs, paramedics, construction workers, carers, etc. Recirculation is a property of all domestic public spending. It is not a defence of any specific programme.

Comparing this to the national deficit is also wrong. Almost every discrete programme looks small beside a multi-billion euro figure (whether it's the structural deficit or the €29 BN DSP budget). That does not mean it should escape scrutiny. Budget decisions are made at the margin. €60 MM for artist basic income competes with all these other €5-100m line items, not with the entire deficit.

Exponent blindness is real, but it is not relevant here. The question is:

Is this the highest-value use of €60-70 MM per year in a system with delayed scoliosis surgeries, SNA shortages, and overstretched mental health services?

That 33 million could have built, let’s say, 66 houses and housed, let’s say, 264 people (66 families of four) for a generation before needing much in the way of maintenance.

But no, fuck the working poor, let’s fund artists.

Myopic.