DUBLIN

THE GRAVY TRAIN of British Intelligence funds has come to a full stop, as the United Kingdom says it has no more money for recruiting Irish agents.

For decades the British Intelligence services have provided an enormous income stream to Irish politicians, Government officials, civil servants, police and other agents of influence. However, the books are now full and London insists it just cannot afford to recruit any more Irish people, despite there still being a huge demand for positions as British spies.

“We’ve got so many on the books that we can’t be sure if they all really exist,” said one MI6 officer. “We found out scores of them were dead and we were still paying them. It’s become a joke, if it ever wasn’t. The Irish Government, no matter the hue, was usually more interested in us defeating the IRA than we were. We never needed to recruit them. In fact, it could be that they actually recruited us. And then there was that sordid incident at the Good Friday Agreement negotiations where some people among the various Irish there actually had a stand up row over who would command more MI5 and Mi6 positions. Ugly.”