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.”

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”.

Each share provides €1,256 worth of the bad debt of Anglo’s loan book which holders will be required to pay back to the exchequer by the end of October 2010.

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A new musical to raise awareness of child abuse begins tonight at the Tivoli Theatre. “Stop touching my special area” will star Twink, Mick Lally and Saoirse Ronan and tells the story of a little girl who is being abused by her grandfather and when she tells her grandmother discovers that the old lady is a predatory, incestuous lesbian.

The music for the show has been specially written by Andrea Corr and the lead singer of The Four of Us.

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Muslims are subjected to more racist abuse than any other group in Ireland, according to a survey by the National Anti-Racism Board.

“We think it’s because they have stupid beards and wear smocks”, said a spokesperson.

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Gardai fear Ireland’s first serial killer is on the loose after a spate of murders in Limerick. Forty-three people have been killed since last Tuesday and it is feared a disgruntled Dell employee is to blame.

“We’d just like to send a message to whoever’s doing this killings”, said Detective Sergeant Malachy Selby, “and the message is: it’s much easier to kill people in Poland and far more cost effective”.

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An Eircom official told colleagues they should think of music piracy as ‘sharing’ and “helping the health and good living of rich cocaine sniffing rock stars by leaving them with less free money to spend on sex and drugs, the High Court heard today.

“We need to reach a decision on how we are going to handle this,” the email said. “PS ‘piracy’ is a loaded term. Could we say ‘sharing‘- ‘piracy’ implies there’s something wrong with it.”

Erm…

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Kathryn Thomas - the queen of Carlow

The stars of In Bruges Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell are set to star in a follow-up to the hit movie. In Portumna will see them reprise their roles as hitmen at the 25th anniversary of the Boy Scout Jamboree. Farrell will fall in love with In Tua Nua singer Leslie Dowdall only to discover he’s being paid to kill and eviscerate her. A fun rom-com for all the family.

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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has conceded that invading India would be a good way to increase the price of Sterling. “You can trace this current financial meltdown back to when the Empire began to shrink”, he said. Opponents of the scheme, who include Phil Collins and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, have called on Brown to rethink.

“If this goes ahead”, said Tendulkar, “we will withdraw all of our franchised restaurants and takeaways from the UK. Then we’ll see who’s got the power”.

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There’s a bake sale taking place in Our Lady of the Immaculate Rectum in Santry this weekend to raise money for the Irish Society of Blind Dolphins. Everyone is welcome apart from tuna fishermen.

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RTE’s Kathryn Thomas has been awarded the freedom of Bagenalstown.

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George W Bush has pleaded for leniency for Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at the US President last week. “If it had been one of them there stilton shoes with the pointy heel then sure, lock the guy up for life, but these were flat soled loafers. He was just trying to make a point”

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Finally, union chiefs have advised all Aer Lingus staff to ‘do their utmost’ to prevent a Ryanair takeover the company. “We have looked long and hard at this”, said Stewart Shop of SIPTU, “and finally we have damning evidence. Using the awesome power of the internet we have deduced that an anagram of ‘Michael O’Leary Aer Lingus’ is ‘Hilariously large menace’.

We don’t necessarily find him hilarious but there’s doubting the largeness of his menaceosity”.