The outgoing Cork North Central TD insisted that he has been “compliant” with Leinster House rules

The most disappointing aspect has been the response of Leo Varadkar to this whole affair.

Calls have been made on the Government to increase the number of gardaí deployed and to end a recruitment embargo which has lead to significant gaps in drug addiction services.

By Pádraig Hoare

Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty has been appointed as the party’s deputy leader in the Dáil by party president Mary Lou McDonald.

A national register detailing how much landlord TDs rent out properties for would ensure transparency and prevent politicians using their position to ramp up rental prices.

The Health Minister must intervene to avert strike action involving 7,500 health and social service workers next week, the Dáil heard.

Fianna Fáil could now look to poach Sinn Féin’s Peadar Tóibín after his party rejected his calls for a free vote on abortion.

An ambulance stationed in Swords, Co Dublin, was dispatched to respond to an emergency call in Cork city last year, the Irish Examiner can reveal.

The country is on course to hold a referendum on whether or not to liberalise abortion laws, with senior government figures backing moves for a vote to be held next year.

Just one in four ambulances is meeting turnaround targets, leaving thousands of patients waiting to be transferred to hospitals.

Long-awaited plans to tackle the rental crisis are to be published by Housing Minister Simon Coveney next Tuesday.

Fine Gael TDs are split on refunding water charges, with half of those contacted by the Irish Examiner in favour of giving the money back and a near identical number saying non-payers must instead be pursued.

The Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald says she is concerned by revelations about fixed charged motoring offences.

Telling people not to take illegal drugs "has not worked", a Sinn Féin TD said today.

A Sinn Féin TD has said there are lessons for everyone after one of the party’s youngest councillors returned safe after going missing for almost two weeks, citing stress due to college and constituency work.

Opposition TDs have urged tenants facing possible eviction from a residential development in Cork City to stay put and resist moves to kick them out.

The HSE should be called to account for its spending before the Oireachtas Health Committee, Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher said yesterday.

The big clear-out of Leinster House has begun after the public voted for a spring clean of TDs and ministers.

A Fine Gael junior minister has denied allegations that he told a 72-year-old woman she was an example of the “whingers” referenced by Taoiseach Enda Kenny last weekend.

Eoin English met voters in Cork North Central whose issues are reasonably-paid jobs, services, and housing

A drug injection centre must be set up in Cork and users be allowed to bring drugs to the facility in a bid to stem the tide of addiction in the city, says a Sinn Féin TD.

Sinn Féin TDs and senators yesterday voiced their support for leader Gerry Adams over his continued backing for convicted tax evader Tom ‘Slab’ Murphy.

Banking inquiry members have given a guarded welcome to their drastically cut-back report into what caused the economic crash amid claims the Government may seek new powers to beef up investigations if it fails to meet public demand.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has clashed with his predecessor, James Reilly, by saying he does not want Ireland’s strict constitutional abortion law to be removed entirely, as it would “let the Dáil and Seanad do whatever they like”.

Parents of non-baptised children are being forced to travel for “two hours” to bring them to school, because overcrowded local facilities will not take them in on religious grounds, a TD has claimed.

Government ministers have had the right to order gardaí to drive them to work events in “emergencies” since the summer of 2012, meaning other cases similar to the controversy surrounding European Affairs Minister Dara Murphy may have occurred during the Coalition’s lifetime.

European Affairs Minister Dara Murphy’s difficulty right now is not that his story keeps changing. It is that another chapter seems to be added every day.

A taxi driver claimed junior minister Dara Murphy declined a taxi ride because of the cost of the fare on the night that the Fine Gael TD had two on-duty gardaí drive him from Mitchelstown, Co Cork, to Dublin Airport.

Fine Gael and Labour’s parliamentary parties will be asked to agree to a general election voting pact at their upcoming think-ins in a Coalition bid to fight off growing political competition.

I never met Junior Minister for European Affairs and Data Protection and Cork North Central TD, Dara Murphy.

European Affairs Minister Dara Murphy has said he did nothing wrong in appointing a failed party election candidate as his ministerial driver — claiming being an ex-politician should not stop someone from gaining work.

Sinn Féin is set to hold emergency meetings with grassroots members “over the next few days” to quell anger over its axing of two prominent councillors.

Sinn Féin’s ard chomairle has overturned a rule banning male candidates from challenging Cork East TD Sandra McLellan for a seat at the next general election.

A Sinn Féin councillor has been expelled from the party and another suspended for a year amid a wider internal row involving claims of bullying against a sitting TD and a loan from the organisation’s funds.

A long-standing Fianna Fáil grassroots member who led its Cork same- sex marriage referendum campaign has resigned from the party after accusing TDs and Senators of failing to properly back the campaign.

Fianna Fáil has claimed it will not rely on a range of tax hikes to reform the health service if it gains power after the next general election, saying a €320m hole in its annual investment plans will be funded by taking money from other government areas.

A Sinn Féin TD who became embroiled in a high-profile row in the Dáil after it emerged that his brother was a homeless heroin addict has revealed that his sibling is now clean.

Fianna Fáil will block doctors from performing all but the most pressing private work in public hospitals, force “senior clinicians” and GPs to work seven-day weeks, and pump €600m more into primary care if elected to the next government.