Brian Lenihan, a man who’s contribution to Ireland is rivalled only by that of Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and Oliver Cromwell has claimed the European Central Bank forced Ireland into taking a bailout and rejected claims by a senior ECB figure that the bank warned Ireland in mid-2010 of the fall of Berlin.

He has also accused members of the ECB high command of briefing against Ireland and of “betrayal”.

In a wide-ranging alibi on the events surrounding last November’s bailout, Mr Lenihan criticised some of the 17 governing board members of the bank for the “damaging” manner in which they had briefed some media about Ireland.

“On the betrayal issue, I did feel that some bank governors should not be speaking out of turn and that only the fuhrer should speak for the bank.”

He describes as “at variance with the facts” anything contrary to his alibi in which he maintains that he, his motivations and his party are pure as the driven snow.

“I don’t think the commission were anxious to bounce member states into a programme while they were bouncing member states into a programme”.

He gave a graphic description of his feelings when the bailout talks were concluded. “I’ve a very vivid memory of going to Brussels on the final Monday to sign the agreement and being on my own at the airport having sent my lackeys off to duty free with a list and looking at the snow gradually thawing and thinking to myself, this is terrible. No Irish minister has ever had to do this before. I was only following orders”

“Cé uaireadóirí an Faireoirí?”

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has promised new powers for the gardaí, including independent flight, super strength and a limited roll out of infrared ray blasting visors “like in Holland”.

However, Mr Shatter failed to accede to demands for increased Garda numbers and said Government targets to reduce numbers to 13,000 benign mutant gardai would still provide for the same number of Supergardaí that were in the force in 2006.

Speaking at the Garda Representative Association annual conference in Westport this afternoon, Mr Shatter said the Government had also decided that Gardai would have other more mundane powers like catching murderers and developing the ability to switch off confiscated recording equipment.

Mr Shatter also said what has a profound impact on public safety was “not a matter of numbers”. Rather, he said it was a matter of uncanny powers, super mega hyper intelligence and “shooting rays out of your eyes….as I said…like in Holland”.

He told the conference he would shortly publish new legislation on white collar crime “for those pesky bankers in their top secret High Street overground bunkers protected by missile arrays and radioactive sharks adapted to roaming the land. Like in Anglo”

In the meantime he said he had asked Garda Commissioner Xavier to ensure the Mutant Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation had all the resources it needed, particularly an invisible plane and myriad otherworldly gardai for its investigations into banking matters. “Work undertaken by the bureau in this area is of vital public importance,” he said, disappearing in a puff of ether and rematerialising at the head of the queue in Rolys.

DATELINE IRELAND…
Once the preserve of small children allowed to dress up as their parents and rename animals and everyday objects, Opposite Day has become (in Ireland at least) an extended festival covering several days. Or months. Or even lifetimes.

NAMA TO SAVE ECONOMY
Thus on Opposite Day, NAMA has pledged to enter the market as a lender. To paraphrase Polonius in Hamlet “Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Be both. Who cares when you’re billions in the hole eh? Wisha throw another couple of thousand kids’ futures on the bonfire Paudeen, Mr Trichet will be after catching his death”

SATIRE IS DEAD
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin pledged yesterday to ban corporate donations to political parties. Stop it Micheal! My sides! You’re killing me!

FINE GAEL/LABOUR COALITION IN FLIP FLOP SHOCK
“We have a Five Point Plan” Stop it Enda! Please!
“It’s Labour’s way, or Frankfurt’s way” Oh Jesus Eamon! It hurts! It hurts!
“It was never a Jobs Budget it was always intended to be a Jobs Initiative” Oh lads! You’ve gone and done it now! It’s running down my leg…You’re worse than Micheal…no. Really. You are

WAS IT FOR THIS TONY THE TIGER DIED?

Kellogg’s have announced that they are to replace Coco the Monkey, a hyperactive sugar and chocolate addicted cartoon primate as mascot for their Coco Pops brand. The popular cartoon animal is being given the heave-ho in favour of Jedward, who are between them a hyperactive sugar and chocolate addicted cartoon primate. It is thought to be the first time in history that an animated character has lost out on a gig to a rival with a lower IQ. It is also the first time that Kellogg’s have opted to voluntarily print a photographic warning on a box of their cereal which shows what can happen if you consume it.

Croke Park is to welcome Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip (formerly of Macedonia, now Erster EZB Staat)

…additional reporting by Eamon Trolleybus – of our Gaelic Studies Staff

UNPRECEDENTED
In an unprecedented development, several SKY News and BBC reporters managed to pronounce “GAA” yesterday when reporting on the forthcoming historic visit to Croke Park by the Queen of England and her husband Prince Philip. Two regional news anchors in Cumbria were hospitalised with muscle strain attempting to say “GAH”.

COCK
In a special pre-visit briefing by his equerry, Prince Philip was informed of the traditional post Croke Park games activities ranging from eating sangwiches from the open boot of an Opel Astra parked across someone’s driveway, to the old Dubs’ favourite: singing ‘Molly Malone’ at three in the morning while waving your cock through the letterbox of a house on Clonliffe Road. A puzzled Philip is quoted as saying “Why ever would a chap want to put his feller in some rabid Mick’s letter hole thingumajig” adding hopefully “…..unless….there isn’t some gel with a jam jar full of wasps on the other side is there?”

LONDON RETAIL NEWS
Four hundred bottles of Bollinger and Tattinger were returned by Clarence House yesterday afternoon to Harrods in Knightsbridge an hour after the announcement of the impending royal visit was made. The hastily ordered bubbly had been delivered express to the Prince’s official residence where Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles were dancing a conga singing “Long Live King Charles the Third!”. They got through eight bottles before a footman managed to explain that Her Majesty was visiting Croke Park, not that she had croaked in the park.

DUBLIN RETAIL NEWS
Despite extensive lobbying, the royal itinerary will not include Guiney’s and the €2 Shop on Talbot Street or a good long browse in Carroll’s Souvenirs on O’Connell Bridge.

Now, I’ve never made jokes about rape (and not just because I can’t make jokes), but it’s abundantly clear to anyone looking even half imperiously down their aquiline nose that the remarks made by the Corrib Gardai were meant to remain private. Indeed there is an excellent case for calling such remarks “fairy cakes” or “fluffy gizmos”.

The three man were clearly just using these fairy cakes to deal with immense stress they are under because they are dealing with people whom they think are foreigners. Jesus Christ, PC Ireland: Foreigners. have you no heart? Is a man to be hung for a simple fluffy gizmo?

Now it turns out that these women, the subjects (Oh, sorry, PC Ireland: “Objects”) of the fairy cakes made by these Gardai, were in fact from Dublin 4. In the eyes of some that makes them “not foreign”. Well, we shall see, come the Day of Judgement.

I’d also like to make a popular culture reference by comparing their argot to the rather dippy (and also, I might add, foreign and female) character from the American situation comedy televisual offering “Friends”. However, I don’t really know where I’m going with it and I’ve searched for a recent episode but it doesn’t even seem to have hit mainstream Irish culture yet. So I’m just going to leave this paragraph hanging here to further puzzle the bejesus out of you.

This is a very complex issue. Should officers be forced to speak without reference to “rape” when on duty? Clearly that’s political correctness gone mad. And what of David Norris? What the f*ck are you doing about him? Why does he have all the fun? Am I to be court-martialled for making a joke about Jackie Healy Rae? You betcha I’m not. And why? Because the bastard Royal Irish Regiment still refuse to offer me a commission. Hmph.

Once people raise issues like “human rights”, “respect”, “inclusivity”, “ethnicity”, “multicultural”, “racism”, “diversity” it’s but a small step to the rounding up of white heterosexual males into fenced areas without even a moderately priced bottle of port provided. Is it for this Shergar died?

I saw a comedy programme last night on the televisual wireless receiver, in which a young black foreign lady comediean mercilessly lampponed a white heterosexual man. Would this have happened if it were a white chap lampooning a black foreign person? I have no idea. I’ve just seen the one televisual programme. But I guarantee you that the answer would utterly vindicate whatever it is I am about to write in the next paragraph. Don’t ask me what that will be. You can no more reign in my paragraphs than break my white heterosexual middleclass spirit. Although I am a bit upset about the port.

The Holocaust and Islamic Beheadings are bad. And yet I have laughed at both of them. Laughed like demonic drain. Does this make me a criminal under the New Moral Order? Again, I’ve utterly lost the run of what I’m at so I’ll ditch this paragraph and scamper pell mell towards the onrushing nirvana of the required word count with another para.

Finally… there that should do it.

*Sends copy and opens port*

This eight week run of The Emergency on 4fm concludes with Enda Kenny, Michael Noonan, Joan Burton & Eamon Gilmore suffering another dreadful day in the office and reminiscing about that lovely day just a few short weeks ago when they went to visit “that nice lady who lives near the zoo…”

Read more »

The runners and riders line up for The 2011 Grand Bank Nationalisation, the Peter O’Sullivans are all in position round the course… and they’re off!!! “Over to you, Peter…!”

Read more »

HOW HE WAS CAUGHT: Former Senator Ivor Necklikeajockeysbollix pictured using the discreet modern telephone apparatus which he recently claimed expenses for after purchasing it from The Marconi Telegraph & Trans-Atlantic Cable Company, which he insists is still trading near Cobh

Former Senator Ivor Necklikeajockeysbollix has been fined €60 for holding a mobile phone while driving and he will also receive four penalty points on his licence.

The colourful West Cork sponger had denied the offence and claimed that he was using a state of the art hands-free device for which he had several corroborating invoices whilst driving.

He was convicted at Dublin District Court after evidence from a Garda officer that he was using his phone whilst driving a blue Jaguar car on Ballybough Road in Dublin on 11 October last year. It is about as much justice as he is ever expected to face in this state until the inevitable passage of “bloodthirsty mob” legislation, better known as all out rebellion, expected in 2013.

Accepting the Garda’s evidence, the judge handed down the sentence of a €60 fine and four penalty points. The Houses of the Oireachtais are already steeling themselves for his inevitable claim for the expense incurred.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance seek to reassure the Irish people in the wake of the devastating results of the stress tests on the Irish banks.

Read more »