The report of the Commission on Taxation is launched today. New measures introduced will be a property tax which everyone must pay if they so much as look at a property. Those who actually own one and have been taxed to the fucking hilt already with stamp duty will be pleased to know that their hilt is going to take another pounding. They’re not just going to ‘put the tip in’, a wise man often said, it’s going all the way. And it’ll be sore.

Water tax. As we live on an island where it rains all the time water is a scarce commodity. There’ll be a 20c increase in bottles of water that you get in shops that are just tap water run through an industrial sized Brita filter while all showers in Ireland are to become coin slot operated costing €1 a minute.

A new rate of income tax will be introduced. This rate, to keep things simple, will be called ‘ALL’.

A carbon tax will mean that the Greens can look back in years to come and say ‘Well, people accused us of being soft. Of being Fianna Fail’s puppets. Of going back 0n every principle we ever had just to hang on to that little bit of power which we so greedily suckled on, like it were some magic teat. Yet in the end did we not do our bit for the environment? Did we not care for ozones and stratospheres and mesospheres and invisible stuff at the expense of people who did not give the slightest shit about them? Yes, we did. We made life even more expensive on the back of a foolish belief that it was everyone’s duty to care for the planet. That ‘Gaia’ needed us to care for it, thus making the outrageous, self-indulgent assumption that we weren’t the first of many bacteria to have dwelt on this vast rock and that we couldn’t just be wiped out in a second for everything to start again in another form. At least we did that”.

Use of the sun to see, grow crops or to not plunge into another ice-age will be regulated and taxed appropriately.

Car owners will be subjected to a new ‘wheel levy’ of €200 per wheel per annum while the ‘tyre tarrif’ is expected to raise enough money to bail out 15 property developers per annum.

Air Duty is to be discussed with a proposal that impositions are paid on the basis of lung capacity.

Anyone wishing to emigrate must pay a €3,999.99 departure tax.

Someone wake me up when I’m poor enough to be lying in an alley drinking paint stripper with no idea what’s going on apart from the fact this bottle of paint stripper is a fine vintage.