A Minister of State has today contended that the Government cannot identify the ten individuals involved in the €451 million transaction to purchase shares in Anglo Irish Bank.

Dick Roche, Minister for Dwarves, Midgets and Flids, said that Brian Lenihan, Minister for Finance, told him the individuals could not be named for complex financial reasons.

“He said that as the government was now the largest shareholder in the bank, right, he could not receive any information due to sub-section 42a of the 1946 Confidentiality and Keeping Stuff Hidden Away legislation. As well as that there’s the whole issue of confidence, right?

Dick Roche - won't name those names

What will people think if the Minister releases the names of shareholders who have been involved in dodgy stuff? It will set a precedent and soon he’ll have to name every person in every bank who’s been up to no good and there’s simply no time for that. It’d take years.

So go on out of that now and just whist down asking me, or anyone else in this government, to start naming names. I’ll name other things for you, like the names of the 15 nearest galaxies to us, or the names of James Caan’s movies post-Godfather, but Anglo names I will not name. No, I won’t even just nod if you say the right name”.

However, a Fianna Fail source told the Irish Sentinel “All this stuff about confidentiality and confidence and privacy is all a load of old bollocks. The real reason we won’t name names is when the whole truth comes out we are properly fucked. So we’ll do what every government does in this kind of situation – try and cover it up as long as possible and hope something else comes along to take people’s minds off it. We need an Irish Jade Goody.

If we can wing our way through this then we’ll be all right. If not, well, it’s election time, which will, at least, create some jobs in the placard and poster making industries”.