If you thought the cost of living was getting ridiculous and you'd be better off dead, think again. The cost of being buried means it's getting too dear to die. Belfast City Council is putting up the price of cremation at Roselawn Cemetery by a whopping 25%!

The council says it's losing revenue in some areas so it's looking to raise extra income in other areas. The dead must have seemed an obvious place to start. They can hardly put up much of a fight.

This comes at a time when the council has a predicted underspend in its budget of £879,000.

As I mentioned last week, the figures, to my eyes at least, don't seem to add up.

Nor do I understand why it takes £20,000 to carry out a feasibility study to decide whether or not to build a new crematorium in Newtownabbey. A decision on this is, apparently, “a long way off”.

Why? Can't someone go, look at the land, get three quotations for building and running a crematorium there and present those figures to Belfast and Newtownabbey councils for a decision? Why should it take so long and cost £20,000?

Do we need a new crematorium? Well on the basis of the three times I've been to Roselawn this year, yes. It's getting like the self-service supermarket tills up there. One funeral's going out the top door of the funeral hall/room while the next is coming in the bottom. I can't be the only person who's joined a funeral, wondering why I didn't recognise any of the mourners, only to discover I was praying for the “wrong” person entirely because I'd turned up a bit early.

Nearly two years ago, a working group on burial provision looked at creating a place for “natural” burials. These entail the body being put into the earth in a biodegradable coffin, a tree planted to mark the spot and a small wooden cross, if wanted, to give details of the deceased.

According to the Association for Natural Burial Grounds (yes, there's a society for everything seemingly) demand for such natural send-offs is growing. They get loads of calls asking for it, but have always had to tell people here that it's not available. Like lots of those great deals on car insurance, you can get it in the rest of the UK, but not in Northern Ireland. What's taking so long?

Government departments can move quickly when they want to. Last week, the Laganside Events fund was scrapped by Nelson McCausland. Several days and much criticism later, suddenly the money was found to fund the affected events for one more year.

Likewise, when there's a riot or a war, money is magicked from the air and decisions on spending made with such ease, you'd wonder why all of government can't act so swiftly and decisively.

The Government is to scrap its iris eye-recognition scanners at the four airports that have used the machines in the past number of years. They cost £9m. An expensive failure. Another expensive failure. Does anyone in government feel that failure in his or her take-home pay? No.

Only ordinary people who didn't cause the economic recession in the first place, suffer a cut in pay, to make up for other people's decisions.

If you want a quick interment, just label yourself ‘Government Failure’ — there'll be no problem burying that.