When PJ Mara resigned as Fianna Fáil director of elections for the Nice Treaty referendum in 2002 after adverse findings against him in the Flood Tribunal, it looked like he might be departing the political scene for good.

PJ Mara, the flamboyant former government press secretary, will be buried in Kinvara Co Galway tomorrow beside his late wife.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has led tributes to PJ Mara, the former Fianna Fáil spin-doctor turned businessman, who passed away this morning.

PJ Mara has died, aged 73.

Staff working in almost half of the creches and playschools inspected by the HSE in the past 12 months had not been vetted by gardaí.

A banking inquiry would absolve Fianna Fáil of the blame for the financial crash and boost the party’s image ahead of elections, according to former government spin doctor PJ Mara.

THE broadcast of a Prime Time Investigates special report last May into the mistreatment of children at a number of creches has proven a catalyst in raising awareness of standards and the regulation of pre-school facilities.

STEPPING across the threshold of PJ Mara’s home in leafy Ballsbridge, Dublin, you feel a certain dread that you’re about to be ripped apart as a journalist.