NEWTON'S OPTIC:ARE YOU worried about today's junior minister downsizing? Could the issues that matter to you be left unrepresented at the crucial "slightly above TD" level? If so, put your mind at rest with this handy cut-out-and-keep guide to the surviving junior ministers:
Pat Sharey:Department of Communities, Neighbourhoods and Areas.
Minister of State for social inclusion, active citizenship, social action, active inclusion, social citizenship, inclusive action, citizen action, inclusive citizens and ships.
Helen Keller:Department of Defence Against the Social Partners.
Minister of State for stockpiling food to prepare for a hauliers’ strike, fuel to prepare for a dockers’ strike and angry semi-literate women to prepare for a teachers’ strike.
Julie Andrews:Department of Children, Babies and Youths of 16 Going On 17.
Minister of State for child poverty, child debt, child bankruptcy, child unemployment, child negative equity and child pensions.
Dick Rash:Department of Smearing Libertas by Any Means Possible.
Minister of State for commissioning blatantly prejudicial documentaries, with special responsibility for suggestive editing and adding creepy background music to perfectly innocuous interviews.
Tony "Skipper" Kipper: Department of Quotas and Subsidies.
Minister of State for positive forestry, or “seeing the would for the trees”.
Frank Force: Department of Foreign, British and Northern Ireland Affairs.
Minister of State for complaining again and again about a British media conspiracy to destroy the Irish economy, based on a throwaway remark two months ago on BBC’s Newsnight.
Seán Jolly-Hockeysticks: Department of Schools, Jobs and Stuff.
Minister of State for night classes and seatbelts, with special responsibility for clunking and clicking.
John Raisin: Department of Rustic Affairs, Rusty Irish and Rasta Cigarettes.
Minister of State for patriotic partitionism, with special responsibility for erecting Irish-only roadsigns to Newry.
Kevin Major: Department of Places to Sit After Principled Stands.
Minister of State for GM-contaminated asparagus, with special responsibility for the National Asparagus Management Agency (Nama). Tips not included. The value of asparagus may go down as well as up. Your asparagus is at risk if you do not keep up regular watering.
Döner Lenihan: Department of Everything.
Minister of State for kebabs with everything.
Sir Martinet Mann: Department of Highbrow Art and Real Culture.
Minister of State for Being a Bit of a Character, with special permission to lose it on air regularly so the Taoiseach gets away with it occasionally.
Noah Bertie: Department of Metro North, Drumcondra and Being Careful Now.
Minister of State for integrating transport while still respecting its multimodal diversity, with special responsibility for cycling initiatives and recycling cycling initiatives.
Mickey Finn: Department of Heritage, History, Tradition, Ceremony and Housing.
Minister of State for offering tax breaks to the producers of the final Harry Potter film: Harry Potter and the Half-Built Development.
John McBeamish: Department of Capitalism.
Minister of State for complaining about the size of the public sector but joining Fianna Fáil regardless.
John Baloney: Department of Press Releases, Increments and Long Service.
Minister of State for explaining that the staff of any former junior minister will simply be transferred to another department, as sacking them involves a procedure which could only have been authorised by their former junior minister.