The government today apologised for releasing the wrong budget last week, saying an incorrectly placed decimal point caused the confusion.
Speaking from the big Arás, the Commander-In-Chief explained that instead of €2.5 billion in cuts, the government actually has to make up €25 billion.
When asked how such a mistake could occur, the Commander-In-Chief said “Well here now, lookit, sometimes, y’know, when you’re writing them big long cheques all day you can get a bit of a sweaty hand on ye. We’ve been writing a lot of cheques lately, that banker’s coffee doesn’t pay for itself. It seems the Minister for Money’s pen slipped while he was writing out the budget, so it looked like a decimal point in between the aul dó and the cuig there.”
The Commander-In-Chief continued: “Sure we thought it was great at first, getting an extra €20 billion or so, we thought those German boyos were being pure sound. I was gonna give them an absolutely massive bowl of shamrocks on Paddy’s day.
“But, er, yeah, they kinda rang us up after they saw that on the aul news there and were all like ‘here now lads, what’s the shtory here?’ So yeah, we need to make up €25 billion instead of €2.5 billion.”
The Labour Party reacted with dismay to the announcement, as they had been pushing for a reduction of the initial €3.1 billion in proposed cutbacks. Labour’s Commander pledged the cuts would be less than the €25 billion, saying Labour would help reduce the proposed Fine Gael cuts.
“Now lookey here, the Labour Party has long been the champion of the little people, of the tiny people and of the mole people, so we’re not letting the short or stocky in our society get hit by these cuts anymore.
“Labour will reduce these cuts by at least 3 per cent, and if not by 3 per cent, then by a bit anyways, because Labour is the party by the people, for the people, with the people and by the people.”
Opposition party leaders have reacted with delight to the budget mix up, with the Commander of Fianna Féin in particular wasting no time in launching their criticisms.
“This is just typical of this government’s arrogance, selfishness and poor mathematical ability,” said Fianna Féin Commander. “You can be well sure now that if Fianna Féin were in government we’d be able to add all the way up to triple numbers, or to very big ones anyway. This party has a long history of action in historical times of action, and need I remind you that we added up how many banks needed lots of money with lots of decimal points and numbers there a while back.”
He finished: “This is also an argument for better maths learnin’ in edumaction places, as current teaching methods encourage these ‘sweaty decimal points’.”
The Minister for Money has hit out at the pen he was using to write the budget, claiming it “slipped out of my hand faster than a woman in Coppers”, and broke it in half with one mighty swing. Coppers has since denied the claim, saying that its women offer both excellent leverage and grip.
Paul O’ Donoghue
Image Credit: Creative Commons
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