80% Of Guards Revealed To Be Cardboard Cut-Outs

BELEAGUERED Garda commisioner Noirín O’Sullivan has refused to comment on whether or not she will step down in the wake of yet another scandal to hit An Garda Síochána, following the damning revelation that up to 80% of cops in Ireland are actually cardboard cut-outs wearing uniforms.

The shocking report, leaked by a source close to An Gardaí, showed that the majority of Garda time in this country is spent maintaining the cardboard props, the majority of which are believed to have been sourced from Xtra Vision when it shut down.

“I always thought that the quiet guard who worked in the back looked an awful lot like Antonio Banderas,” said one Ballinasloe native, following the news.

“He’d fall over now and then, and they’d prop him back up. Come to think of it, I reckon there was only one guard in the whole place. The rest of them sure did look like the Irish rugby team from an old jersey promotion in Champion Sports”.

Not stating one way or the other as to what her future entails, commissioner O’Sullivan stressed that ‘An Garda’ played a vital role in keeping crime rates down in troubled areas over the last few years.

“Look, you can have no guards on the street, or you can have a standee of Sandra Bullock from Gravity wearing a high-vis jacket,” said O’Sullivan, tersely.

“These aren’t perfect times. We’re fighting a vicious drug war in our capital, a spike in home invasions and a soaring sex trafficking trade. There’s only so much money to go around. Actual guards cost money. We found 87 life-sized Grus from Despicable Me in a skip out the back of the Odeon that are more than capable of maintaining a Garda presence at football matches and even on patrol if they’ll balance on a rollerskate and the wind is right. I apologise for nothing”.