As the dust settles on the Irish Robinson affair, the Northern Irish restaurant industry is warning of dire times ahead. As restaurateurs come out of the woodwork proclaiming that Robinson was funding their enterprises, a stem in the flow of that money could prove lethal.

“We have no idea how deep this thing runs”, says Ulster’s Head of Food Things, Gerry O’Belch. “Iris Robinson had her claws dug deep into the industry, with a network of 19-year-old boys running restaurants and cafes and bars, and it was all propped up by this constant flow of cash.”

Seventeen more teenagers last night admitted that they had slept with Iris Robinson in exchange for cheques worth several tens of thousands of pounds. One, little Dougie McCheeseburger, had used the money to start up his restaurant “The Iris” as a sign of his devotion to the errant wife of the First Minister.

“I thought I was alone”, says McCheeseburger, “but she was funding every restaurant in the town, the dirty old bat. I feel used.”

O’Belch said that she had created an illusion of good times for the industry: “It was all looking so good. Nobody even stopped to question how so many teenage boys were all of a sudden owning restaurants and running them, they just got on with it and they were doing so well. And then, all of a sudden, they started getting text messages from the First Minister’s wife saying that she wanted the money back.”

Robinson’s plan to dominate the restaurant trade appears to have backfired after a dodgy curry at one of her protégé’s restaurants. Amir Fling, whose six-month affair with Robinson came to an end after he allowed two gay people into his restaurant, said “what a terrible evening that was. I’d put too much chilli in her curry, and she was already fuming. Then my two friends Jeremy and Gus came into the restaurant, and she blew her top. Give me back my money, she started screaming, give me back my money.”

Robinson then racked up phone bills that ran into triple figures texting every restaurant in Northern Ireland, saying “if I had an affair with you, I want my money back.”

O’Belch concluded that the boom time is over now that Robinson has been found out: “We look a bit foolish really. Before Robinson, it was just chips and beans. During Robinson, it was jus and truffles. After Robinson, well I guess we’re just going to go back to chips and beans.”