After five years of economic misery, various business organisations decided to inject some festive cheer into their annual lunches by hiring comedians. Dublin Chamber held its lunch last Thursday in the Four Seasons. Risteard Cooper was the gag man. He referred to the Irish colonising Britain through Greencore’s sandwiches.

"Is [Greencore boss] Patrick Coveney in the room?" asked Cooper. No, comes the reply. "Great I can say what I want about them. Greencore…€1.4 billion turnover…before and after tax." He then damned the company with faint praise over its lucrative Tesco contracts. "In fairness, Tesco Finest is the dog's b******s … literally." He also referenced Coveney's brother Simon as the "minister for horsemeat".

The following day in the Shelbourne as the Institute of Directors had its lunch Barry Murphy of Aprés Match dished out the insults. He said the IoD was like "Facebook for aul' fellas…[pause] … and aul' wans by the look of it."