http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8rfybVYFqQ

IT’S NOT OFTEN – especially in the country’s current circumstances – that we see members of cabinet openly struggling to stifle a laugh.

Yesterday, however, justice minister Alan Shatter was struck by the most unfortunate of laughing fits, in that most revered of places: the Seanad chamber.

The minister was discussing the funding for a community education project with Sinn Féin’s senator David Cullinane when he was overcome with apparent amusement at the predominance of acronyms in his prepared statement.

“I’ve so many initials from a broad range of things in this script, it’s extraordinarily how they’re invented,” Shatter explained.

The laughter really kicks off from about 1m30 in, and takes full flight just after the two-minute mark.

“It must be from lack of food, I think,” adding:

I think if I find another set of initials for another organisation, I think I’ll just collapse.

Cullinane, to his credit, took no offence at the unusual source of the minister’s amusement.

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