The strange and wondrous convention known only as ‘Irish banking’ was thrown into chaos last night with the news that ‘He-who-must-not-be-named’ was one of the key investors who borrowed hundreds of millions of euro to buy shares in the pathetic, failed, disgraceful and disgusting Anglo Irish Bank.

In response to the news, the chief financial officer for Hogwash Castle, ‘So-dumb-they’ll-have-to-show-him-the-door’, said:

Lenihan's magic will leave the country Quidditchs in

“When people defraud the financial system, they shouldn’t be brought to justice. Justice only applies to poor people who shoplift from BT2. Anyway, we can’t bring Lord Voldemort to justice – we simply don’t have the spells. Excuse me, the laws. It can’t be illegal if there are no laws against it and only rich people make laws. Poor people make bets.”

And with a whisper of his cloak of invisibility, Minister ‘So-dumb-they’ll-have-to-show-him-the-door’ was gone, off on a merry adventure into the ‘land that report-reading forgot’.

But what of the humble citizenry of this fantastic emerald cauldron of financial, slugs, snails and puppy-dogs’ tails? These people, known simply as ‘the debt-eaters’, are expected to pick up the tab for this feast of wealthy fools. When 120,000 of them marched the streets of Dublin over the week end, some media commentators noted that not since America’s decision to unilaterally invade Iraq had such a useless march gone ahead, while one private sector worker said:

“Those people in the public sector need to take their fucking heads out of the sand. What are the Ministry of Magic going to do – magic some more money into the economy?”

And apparently this is exactly the plan. By invoking the all-powerful rite of the Lisbon Treaty. One goblin from the bank said:

“Successful banking is a lot like Quidditch. You need a lot of brooms for people to fly around on, something called a golden snitch, a few beaters and an item known as a qwaffle. I swear to God that’s all there is to running a bank.”