Minister With Responsibility For Reforming Ethics Body Can’t Reform Ethics Body After Ethics Called Into Question

THE MINISTER with responsibility for implementing new laws relating to the Standards in Public Office (SIPO) has recused himself from the responsibility after his standards while in public office have been called into question.

Paschal Donohoe’s failure to declare an election donation of €1100 from a man he subsequently placed on a shortlist to head a State taskforce has led the government to declare ‘oops, let’s hope this doesn’t further delay any reforms that would punish this sort of thing’.

“Well Paschal has now admitted his error and amended the records, so let’s not overreact and overhaul the ethics watchdog to give it more powers or anything,” confirmed every Irish politician yet to have their dodgy dealings discovered.

“This is sort of like finding out the person in charge of fireworks safety is a pyromaniac,” said one observer, who confirmed finding a sitting government TD who doesn’t have a similar conflict could see the position go unfilled.

SIPO will now investigate the minister who is in charge of rubber-stamping any potential strengthening of SIPO’s powers, which are currently weaker than an iron deficient baby lamb with a muscle wasting condition when it comes to sanctioning and punishing public officials.

“Wow, we really would have been able to investigate this thoroughly and with the right resources if the government had bothered to implement any of the 49 reforms we asked for which they just ignored,” confirmed one SIPO spokesperson.

Meanwhile, a separate review into the ethics of Irish politicians was completed within minutes of being launched after it was concluded they don’t have any.