“Patients are not under any greater risk because of this cost-saving measure,” a spokesman for Minister for Health Mary Harney said. “They take their lives in their hands when they go into hospital here anyway.”

The spokesman said it would “clearly have been nonsense” to maintain expensive consultant radiologists to look at stock x-rays. “The tax payer should know that we will not waste their money foolishly,” he said, during a break from whale watching in southern New Zealand.

The spokesman said doctors were well equipped to diagnose patients without proper x-rays. “They can prod patients with their fingers and ask them if it hurts,” he said. “Some consultants will even listen to the answer.”

Meanwhile, the man whose x-rays have been used as stock x-rays has said he feels violated by the experience. “It is like being raped,” Mr Martin Cullen of Waterford said.

The Mire can now reveal some of the models in iPad Roleplay that are proving popular here:

iSad allows users to get inside the head of Charlie Bird.

iDad gives users who want it the John Waters experience.

iHad is surprisingly popular as it gives users the sensations felt by Martin Cullen while he is being raped by the media.

iCad and iLad are two Tiger Woods roleplay models proving popular with golfers.

iMad, which offers the Iris Robinson experience, is also popular.

Finally, iFad lets users know what it feels like to be an iPad.

Vote for The Mire as Best Humour and Best Newcomer in the 2010 Irish Blog Awards.