Taoiseach likened to Haughey amid furore over Seanad ‘stroke’

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been compared to arch manipulator Charles Haughey by a Fine Gael TD outraged over "stroke politics" surrounding a Seanad by-election.

Seán Conlan said there was a climate of “fear” within Fine Gael as TDs were too scared to speak out because the leadership would take revenge and “punish” them.

“We are very fearful of the fact there seems to be a situation where the Taoiseach is returning to the days of stroke politics and the days of Charlie Haughey. The Taoiseach’s actions have damaged Fine Gael. It appears to be stroke politics at its worse,” the Cavan-Monaghan TD told RTÉ.

The extraordinary comparison with Mr Haughey came as the row over Mr Kenny’s nomination of John McNulty to run for the party in a Seanad by-election, that only Oireachtas members can vote in, continued to rage.

Fine Gael was forced to deny it was strong-arming its TDs and senators after it emerged the party wanted officials in the same room when they cast their votes.

The controversy was sparked after it emerged Arts Minister Heather Humphreys appointed Mr McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art days before Mr Kenny announced he was the party’s nominee to fill the Seanad vacancy in the cultural panel.

Mr McNulty resigned from IMMA amidst uproar, and opposition parties have called on Mr Kenny to drop him as a candidate.

Mr Conlan made it clear he believed Ms Humphreys knew Mr McNulty was in line for the Seanad nomination when she appointed him, saying it would “stretch credulity to believe she didn’t know what she was doing when she appointed him to the board”.

“And I mean the general public are not stupid. The general public can see what’s going on here,” he added.

Mr Conlan said Ms Humphreys had been promoted to the Cabinet because of gender and had “pulled the ladder-up behind her” because Mr McNulty was chosen for the nomination over women candidates.

Simon Harris, the junior finance minister, was among a number of Fine Gael figures to publicly back the Taoiseach.

Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have called on Mr McNulty to withdraw from the election.

Labour’s deputy chief whip John Lyons said the party’s TDs and senators would be mindful that a defeat for Mr McNulty would eliminate the Government’s majority in the upper house.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan branded the nomination a “mess”.

Waterford TD John Deasy branded Mr Kenny’s style of leadership “disgusting” in the wake of the row. He said people were being promoted not on talent, but because they “grovelled” to the Taoiseach.