The Clerk of the Seanad has been urged to withdraw the name of Fine Gael candidate John McNulty from the nomination papers for the forthcoming by-election to fill a vacant seat in the Upper House.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny insisted he did not order the appointment of his Seanad nominee John McNulty to a high-profile arts post.

Fine Gael TDs and senators have rowed in behind criticism of Enda Kenny after the outrage over the nomination of John McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art ahead of his bid for a Seanad seat.

Fresh questions have emerged over the Taoiseach’s handling of the Garda whistleblower controversies, with new information showing he failed to act on warnings from his own party on the issue.

The outgoing head of the Department of Justice, Brian Purcell, is being "kept sweet" by retaining his €200,000 a year salary because of his role in events leading up to the resignation of the former Garda commissioner.

We still don’t know what led to the Garda commissioner quitting, writes Political Editor Mary Regan

BRIAN Purcell has taken a bullet for the State twice in his career. Once, when he was near the bottom of the pile, as a young official in the Department of Social Welfare, he refused payment to an applicant for the dole. That claimant was the notorious Dublin gangster, The General. Purcell was kneecapped for his troubles.

It may have taken the bones of four years but, at long, long last, the kind of purge needed to bring real change to a section of our public life, change promised before the 2011 election, seems to have begun or at very least been put in train.