Gaff for sale, comes with own backbench chickens

ROLL up! Roll up! Reduced ramshackle Republic for sale! No offer too small, or too humiliating for consideration.

New to the international money market, good doer-upper, foundations have collapsed however, due to careless activities of previous landlords — the reckless cohabiting couple Fianna Fáil and the Greens.

Buy-to-rent continental consortium, the EU/IMF, are keen on securing a bargain deal with knock-down €90bn offer, but negotiations have taken a back seat as FF and the Greens slug it out over who is to blame for the shocking state of the gaff.

Fianna Fáil — self-styled guardians of real estate’s prized individuality — have even turned to previous owners the Britons for a bridging loan of €8.4bn.

This has caused something of a stir in the neighbourhood as the Britons were not very well liked when they last had control of the property and had to be finally evicted amid some controversy and unpleasantness.

FF have taken flak for accepting “the Queen’s shilling” as the finance chief for the Britons, Chancellor of their Exchequer George Osborne, has interesting historical connections with the area as he is heir to the Osborne baronetcy of Ballentaylor, Co Tipperary, and Ballylemon, Co Wexford, and some of his ancestors were absentee landlords and members of the Irish House of Lords — the body which voted itself out of existence and turned over its powers of self-determination in return for English treasure.

All proving that history really does repeat itself first as tragedy and then as farce.

Though rundown, the FF-wrecked property boasts a fine yard where they kept chickens on a backbench who liked nothing more than to cluck and sit on their generous taxpayer-funded nest eggs.

After having their heads cut off by the EU/IMF’s henchman, Ajai Chopra — The Chopper — the backbench chickens spasmed and ran around for 30 seconds looking threatening a while squawking about a “bare knuckle affair”.

But the chickens were soon tossed into their pen by The Chopper and await their inevitable fate — being roasted by voters in a new year feast of fury.

However, the EU/IMF consortium was also having novel ideas about its funding for the property bid and suggested cutting income tax for women in the vicinity by 5%, but this was soon dubbed a “Penis Tax” by some angry men who felt overlooked by the unusual attempt to boost childcare — with militant males even describing it as a “Chopper Tax” in honour of the IMF boss who thought of it.

All the while the head of the Fianna Fáil clan Brian Cowen was still refusing to accept any responsibility for the way he had trashed the property he inherited from his forgetful uncle Bertie Ahern.

Uncle Bertie had to be removed from the estate after he lost his memory and was unable to tell the Mahon corruption probe exactly where curious sums of money in his bank accounts had come from — at one point vaguely insisting a large wedge had been won on the gee-gees.

Uncle Bertie was last seen looking bewildered in a kitchen cupboard talking to a packet of Hobnobs and saying: “I never thought I’d end up here.”

Despite the fact no one else wanted Cowen to take control of the property, Uncle Bertie bequeathed it to him on his political deathbed and even though Cowen can no longer pay the bills he insists on squatting in the office of Taoiseach.

There goes the neighbourhood — and there goes the Republic’s future.