Dink Smedley asked:

Dear Patrick,
Given your student background, can you tell me what your stance is on student fees?

Dear Dink,

Thank you for your question. Before answering it I must first insist that you return my student background as no one had any right to give it to you in the first place. That picture of TCD with me standing in front it wearing my ‘Justice for someone’ t-shirt while holding my fist in a menacing and defiant manner is very important to me so I want it back or I’ll make the face.

Now to answer your query, my stance on student fees remains very much as it always has. I keep my feet as close together and as straight as possible so that my posture is always vertical medically, thus ensuring my abdominal muscles do not expand forward in my later years. This is a practice I learned from an early age and one which I fundamentally believe in with every fruit and fibre of my being, ever since it became an election issue in 1976. As you’ll appreciate, this belief, no matter how much I vociferously defend it now, will be subject to review should it become clear after the next election that there is no budget to support any medical studies of a similar nature in the future… as has always been my policy.

Fees are of course a matter of come concern to someone I’m sure and if they become an election issue I’ll be right behind whatever populist view guarantees me a slot on the Vincent Browne Show. Rest assured I’ll be ‘flexible’ in those views, once the results of the next election are in.

Regardless
PG