Enda Kenny bank probe move likened to Nazi politics

Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s move to force a Government majority onto the banking inquiry was compared to what happened in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia by opposition senators.

The Government lost its expected edge on the nine-member probe because Labour senators failed to turn up for a nomination vote last week, so the Coalition extended the membership to 11 in order to outnumber the opposition on the long-awaited inquiry.

The move provoked uproar in the Seanad, with Fianna Fáil Senator Ned O’Sullivan saying that the Taoiseach was “coming in to dump down on this House in a way that Hitler himself with the Enabling Act would have been ashamed of”.