It is a rather grand open plan room with two toilets facing each other. One for Mr Noonan and the other, on a raised platform for Mr Howlin.

He’s seething at Mr Noonan’s success in off-loading the Bank of Ireland for a song to speculators.

“Baldy’s getting all the headlines,” he said, throwing balled up toilet roll at Mr Noonan who was asleep on the toilet opposite.

At least I thought it was toilet roll but it turned out that the Ministers are wiping their asses with the Memorandum of Understanding.

I said this was offensive but Mr Howlin insisted it was due to cutbacks. “Ajai would be impressed,” he said.

Energy Minister Eamon Ryan has revealed a new technology that will tap into celebrities’ egos to fuel the national grid. “Ego fuel is an eco fuel,” he said. “This is completely carbon neutral. The only waste product is hot air.”

“This is a huge untapped resource,” Mr Ryan added. “We could soon be exporting energy around the globe. For example, it is estimated that less than one per cent of Bono’s ego fuel could satisfy China’s energy needs for a decade.”

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has agreed to ring-fence the artists’ exemption tax and broaden its terms to include any celebrity who is prepared to donate up to two per cent of their ego energy.

Mr Lenihan was full of praise for the Green Party initiative. “They are little Green geniuses,” he said. “They’re not much craic but we love them anyway.”

Mr Lenihan ordered the review as part of his preparation for December’s budget. However, although a team of forensic accountants dedicated six months to the task they could not find any trace of benefit arising from the efforts of any state agency.

“We looked at Fas, we looked at the Health Service Executive, we looked at everything. If any good had come of any of these agencies we would have found it,” a spokesman said.

“The cost benefit analysis formula is useless if there is no benefit to measure cost against. This is clearly a flaw in the cost benefit analysis formula and does not reflect in any way on the work of this country’s dedicated state agencies,” a senior civil servant said.

Many citizens were surprised to see Taoiseach Brian Cowen and all of his Government ministers protesting against his government but Mr Cowen said it was vital that the public realised “that we are as angry and disillusioned as they are going forward”.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said he couldn’t stand idly by while the economy and the public finances were in such an appalling state. “It is my duty to protest,” he said.

Tanaiste and Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment Mary Coughlan was typically forthright in her criticism of herself and her colleagues. “No one gives a fuck,” she said. “Look at my job title. It’s meaningless. There is no trade, enterprise or employment. What sort of fucken eejit do they take me for?”

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has had to rush to Rathkeale in an attempt to pacify the two ministers. Mr Lenihan insists that the appearance of Kathleen ni Houlihan is a call to patriotic action to support the Government in these dark times. “The pint of stout represents the need for us to bond as a community. We need sing songs in poorly lit pubs. If the Taoiseach leads us in song the country will get behind him. We can sing ourselves out of recession,” he said.

However, Mr Cowen has refused to break into song. Under pressure from Mr Ahern, who spent the entire summer in Rathkeale, Mr Cowen said he thought the outline on the stump was more likely to be of the Virgin Mary than of Kathleen ni Houlihan. But he urged people not to be divided on the issue. “Who is to say it is not both of them? We need all the help we can get. I don’t care if it is King Billy on the stump as long as it supports Nama and Lisbon.”

Cabinet colleagues of the two ministers have for some time expressed the fear that the immense pressure they are under to do their jobs has led them to resort to religious and patriotic fervour. In fact their colleagues now refer to the two ministers as God (Mr Ahern) and Country (Mr Lenihan).

The two senior ministers were sent to Rathkeale by the Taoiseach at the start of the summer to see if they could get the Virgin Mary to intervene on behalf of the economy. Mr Ahern took to the task with such zeal that he bonded with the stump and has refused to leave it for any reason.

The two ministers have spent most of their time there since. However, Mr Ahern has recently bonded with the stump and has refused to leave it under any circumstances. Cabinet colleagues now fear that his introduction of the Defamation Bill, originally seen as a shrewd move to invoke God when nothing else was working, was in fact a result of his succumbing to religious fervour.

“The stress he and Brian Lenihan are under has been immense,” a Cabinet source said. “It is hardly any wonder they have resorted to religious and patriotic fervour to get them through.” The source said that their colleagues now referred to the two ministers as God (Mr Ahern) and Country (Mr Lenihan).

President Mary McAleese is to state today whether she is referring the Defamation Bill and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill to the Supreme Court. “She has no right,” Mr Ahern said. “Our Lady’s appearance on the stump is a clear indication that she supports the Defamation Bill. There is no higher court.”

Mr Ahern’s words have apparently outraged Mr Lenihan whose patriotic fervour demands support for the office of President. Until now Mr Lenihan has manfully said that it is his patriotic duty not to fall out with Mr Ahern but he is finding it increasingly difficult. “We are facing the prospect of all out hostilities between God and Country,” a concerned Cabinet source said.

The two senior Government ministers have been briefed to maintain a vigil at the stump and to pray for the economy. It is understood that senior civil servants in the Taoiseach’s office have persuaded Mr Cowen that divine intervention is the only realistic prospect of turning around the dire economic situation.

The outline of the Blessed Virgin first appeared in the tree stump on Monday and this, together with the prospect of three months holidays, immediately gave rise to a wave of optimism in Leinster House.

However, it is understood that Mr Ahern was reluctant to travel to the stump as he had just reduced the maximum fine payeable for blasphemy. Mr Ahern was afraid that the stump would take a bleak view of his actions and might not want to help the economy.

Mr Lenihan was more optimistic. He said he was confident that the great sacrifices made by the Mirish people on behalf of the economy would “excite the admiration” of the tree stump.

In the face of the onslaught from Fine Gael and Labour Mr Lenihan resorted to the delusional stance of stating that the report represented an endorsement of current Government policy.

“This is clearly nonsense but he had to say something,” a Finance Department source said. “To be honest he doesn’t know where the opposition are coming from on this. I mean, there are no jobs out there. What class of eejit would resign from a well paid job at a time like this?”

“This is not the time for a career change. It’s time to sit tight and try not to draw attention to yourself,” the source added.

Welcoming a leading leopard’s statement that leopards who had yet to change their spots might still do so, Mr Cowen said he expected “strong and continuous participation” by leopards in the scheme.

In typically robust language Mr Cowen nonsensed the suggestion that leopards could not change their spots. “That thinking is in the past,” he said. “We are now in the business of thinking and doing the impossible. ”

Mr Cowen said the next budget would show just how possible the impossible has become. “Not only will we get leopards to change their spots,” he said. “We will also get feathers from frogs and blood from stones.”

The move follows exhaustive but ultimately fruitless efforts to convince leopards to change their spots voluntarily. Mr Lenihan had written to leopards several weeks ago requesting their co-operation “in the national interest”. However, he was universally snubbed by the leopards who didn’t even bother to reply.

He then entered negotiations with leopard representatives the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) but they were adamant that there was no possibility of leopards changing their spots: “This is simply not possible. He might as well ask politicians to give up pension benefits,” a spokesman said. “They are not capable of doing so. The national interest doesn’t really motivate leopards.”

However, a spokesman for Mr Lenihan said he had been assured by no less an authority than David Bellamy that leopards can change their spots. Mr Bellamy had been hired to consult on the issue and his advice formed the basis of the new legislation.