Politicians - money coming out of their ears

Off the back of several incidents of a financial nature, the Irish government has been rocked by scandal once again.

A recent investigation, undertaken by a leading Irish newspaper has uncovered that a Fianna Fáil TD and former Minister of State has been receiving the pensions of six other people over the past number of months.

Several TDs with the surname Murphy have been elected to the Dáil over the past number of years, a few of whom are dead. In a stunning twist, one which those with any semblance of logic have so far failed to understand, all of the pension payments were paid to one TD.

Although legislation does not allow serving politicians to collect on ministerial pensions, yet another mistake by the Department of Public Expenditure allowed for TD Murphy to collect thousands in undeserved pension money.

“I’m really very annoyed that I didn’t notice this before” complained Mr Murphy. “Shure had I known that money was coming in I would have gone on that trip to Vegas with the lads.”

Mr Murphy maintains he never noticed the money being paid into his account every month. “Ah well I have a load of money in there anyway, you know, from various ‘business deals’ and a few bob here and there for expenses. That Merc isn’t going to run itself now is it!”

The Department has apologised profusely to the TD for probably causing him a large amount of stress usually associated with having a great deal of money to pay the bills.

Feeling too ashamed to ask for the mistakenly allotted funds back, the Department has insisted that he keep the money, and will cut off the flow when it “gets around to it.”

Meanwhile, the search around the Dáil chambers continues, as the Department double checks for any further mislaid billions.

Conor Forrest