Government Was Hoping You Wouldn’t Find Out About €36bn Worth Of Russian Assets In Ireland

“AH, right, well it’s just, you see, em… shite,” confirmed the coalition government after it came under sustained questioning in the Dáil over the presence of €36bn of Russian assets sloshing around the IFSC in Special Purpose Vehicles.

While several prominent government ministers have taken a tough line on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is believed the government was really hoping no one would be bringing up the sort of Russian assets, much of them linked to oligarchs, that would be ripe for being frozen.

“New email, who dis?” responded Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, some 24 months after Sinn Féin TD Maireéad Farrell first began asking what the government was going to do about the problem of Russia moving assets to Ireland to avoid sanctions.

“Actually technically it’s not ‘dirty money’, what a ridiculous claim. You think financial institutions charged with funneling Russian money through Ireland would drop it on the floor or spill coffee on it? Cop on,” offered the Taoiseach in response to questions from the Social Democrat’s Catherine Murphy.

Officials from the Department of Finance confirmed they would be unable to act on these claims because if they looked into them they would be proven true and therefore would have to act on them and face up to the fact Ireland is a tax haven for criminals and war crime loving regimes.

Meanwhile, the MEPs who voted against measures to prevent refugees drowning at sea have criticised other MEPs for not voting to fast track Ukraine’s membership to the EU.