Murphy And Harris Point At Each Other And Shout “Housepital” At Same Time

MINISTER For Health Simon Harris and Minister For Housing Eoghan Murphy are said to be skipping around Leinster House in jubilation today, after seemingly cracking both of their troublesome, scandal-ridden briefs with one simple brainwave.

Murphy, facing down the barrel of a vote of no confidence due to the ever-escalating housing crisis, assembled his fellow Fine Gael TDs this morning to state that he ‘has a solution”, thanks to his pal Simon Harris, who is also under fire due to what the HSE is describing as ‘not a great year’.

“Me and Simon were feeling pretty ticked off that all our hard work still wasn’t making everyone happy, we were in a terrible mood” said Murphy, as Harris giddily giggled beside him.

“I said, ‘There’s not enough houses’, he said, ‘There’s not enough hospitals’, and then… you could nearly hear the light bulb go off. I looked at him, he looked at me, we pointed and yelled…”.

“Housepitals!” cried Harris, unfurling a banner showing the logo for the newly-formed Housing and Health Service Executive.

“Is it a house? Is it a hospital? Why not both? He’s got 10,000 people waiting for housing. I’ve got that and then some waiting for medical care. So rather than have two horrible waiting lists weighing down our political careers, why not, y’know merge them!”

The conference paused for a moment while Harris and Murphy attempted a photo-op where they merged the splayed fingers of their hands together.

“That’s all for now”, beamed Murphy, and he and Harris walked off with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

Further details on the scheme are said to be non-existent, but Fine Gael seem happy enough to plough ahead with it for a few years at a cost of ‘whatever it needs’.