BEFORE LEO headed off to Poland this week for the football, he thought it might be a good idea for the Department of Sport to get into the swing of things by hanging out the Irish flag and some green, white and orange bunting.

Well. Minister Varadkar couldn’t have caused such a rumpus had he gone on radio and called for compulsory redundancies in the public sector. What’s that? He did? Right so.

Anyway, instead of a nice bit of bunting, it seemed the only thing he was going to decorate the department with was that civil service favourite: red tape.

Leo’s request was met with a flurry of objections, resulting in a final recommendation that it simply wouldn’t be possible to fly the flag and bunting was entirely out of the question. Entirely.

His wheeze was red-carded on a number of grounds. For starters, he would have to get permission from the building’s owners. And there was a problem with opening the windows – a strong mitigating factor against bunting.

The exercise would most likely require the use of “a hoist”.

Furthermore, the Department of Sport had to apply to the Department of the Taoiseach for permission to hang an Irish flag on State property.

“Ah Jaysus!’ said Leo, getting in some practice before meeting the fans in Gdansk. He raised the matter with the Taoiseach at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. The bunting went up the next day and a flag appeared inside the front door.

And after all that, it’ll be redundant by midnight on Monday.