Ah.
Well, health is a beast who will never be satiated, so "underfunded" is always going to be a thing in health. That said, I think it is seriously underfunded at the moment to the point that critical services are being affected and that clearly isn't good. Health is a constant thorn in the government's side. Nobody wants to pay for it and it has the unfortunate problem that fixing it needs lots of money to pay for highly educated and paid staff which just upsets those who don't want to pay for it even more. In the ROI, hospital visits are €125 per day minimum and doctors are €60 a visit so the health service does at least get some help in that regard.
UK has NI, the ROI has PRSI, both used to fund the Health services. I think if it needs more money, those contributions need to rise across the board and in line with current tax/contribution bands. That won't happen though because those who need it and use it the most won't pay for it.
Education is overfunded.
Let's stop pushing kids into 3rd level education as a holding pen because we can't put them into the job market and we don't want them unemployed. Bring in a system of apprenticeships and trades for school leavers and bin off the multitude of wasteful and needless degree courses which have no use whatsoever except as noted above. Unis are far to powerful and have too much pull for the today's youth. Serious 3rd level education needs serious courses and serious students. I'm not saying that we restrict education, far from it, but giving John from Brixton a 4 year course in the politics and society of the wizard of Oz so as too fill the university coffers whilst getting him of the dole queue is a waste of the potential of him and his socety. Give him a 12month course in plumbing and an apprentiship to follow will not only be better for him but better for the country.
I see far more people being pulled into a wasted degree than I do people pushing for usable degrees.
