The 96FM Radiothon was a resounding success, beyond everyone's dreams. There was an unofficial hope that we would reach €100,000 so to treble it was fantastic. As I write we are fast approaching the €300,000 mark, so by the end of July with money still coming in we should surpass it. Everybody pitched in, including many sports, music and comedy stars.

All but one agreed to either call in or phone. One sports star refused, or at least his agent did, maybe its because no money was on offer. Ronan O'Gara, on the other hand, gave nearly two hours of his time, sitting in on air, standing for endless photo's and then visiting the sick children in the wards of the Mercy.

A true sporting hero and the kids loved him. One small guy seemed to get better before our eyes when Ronan presented him with a Munster Jersey. He will never forget that moment and nor will I.

Nicky Byrne from Westlife called in and spoke with his number one Cork fan. Every net cent will be given directly to the Mercy and CUH childrens' wards to be spent by them and not a bean will go to the HSE, who would squander €300,000 in a heartbeat, in fact the HSE would probably scoff at that amount, considering that it, as an organisation, squanders hundreds of millions of its billions of euro budget every year. They have got so good at it that 45 cent in every Euro gets gobbled up before the rest trickles down into the hospitals and vital services.

Fifty five cent out of every euro is spent on the health, the balance is taken up by management, bureaucracy, admin and waste. Every single penny gathered in income tax in this country goes into the Irish health system, only to have nearly half of it wasted.

If it were a company it would be out of business, with its management black listed for life. In France 7 cent in every euro is taken up by admin and management, leaving 93 cent in every euro to make it to the coalface.

And if you think these figures are getting better, they are not. Add this to the doom and gloom of the past week and it's a sad pathetic place to be. But what did we really expect?. That this boom would actually go on forever? That we as a country we could just keep building housing estates and lending money and living on credit and charging twice the European average for groceries and expect it to last?

Get real, all bubbles burst. Add this to our shamabolic judicial system where the only real benefactors are the fat-cats within the judicial system, oh and don't forget the criminals, they are the winners too. But it was the children that were the real winner this last week, all thanks to the generosity of the Cork people, who dug deep when it real counted. Well done.