Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is the case of the Minister, Conor Murphy, and the appointment of Máirtín Ó Muilleoir to the board of Northern Ireland Water. I believe there were other appointments which ended up in legal wrangles due to the shenanigans that went on. I could say there are many quangos and community boards in Northern Ireland that have the Sinn Féin imprint. I am just making a statement. All political parties have been involved in it in Northern Ireland, in the Republic and in all democracies.

The big difference was that everyone signed up for a different politics at the last general election but the rhetoric that was articulated then and since has not matched the reality of what has happened. That is the point. The McNulty appointment is not actually about political patronage. It is a more profound issue of how a distinguished arts institution was undermined by the process of appointment. He was appointed not because he could serve the board; he was appointed in order to qualify him to run for the Seanad. That was the more fundamental issue which, in my view, separates it from the, if one likes, normal system for State appointments, which needs to be changed.

See this speech in context