Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has taken a wrong line again. I spoke to Mr. John McNulty about his capacity to be considered for nomination to the Seanad. When I gave my imprimatur to indicate we should consider nominating him, the Fine Gael system of validating candidates took over from there. We had already set up, internally in the party, a sub-committee of the executive council to consider names for nomination to the Seanad. There were 44 nominations submitted, or 29 people. Therefore, 29 were being considered. Obviously, the Fine Gael personnel working on this became aware in the course of the conversations with Mr. McNulty that he indicated he would like to serve on a cultural board if he intended to be a candidate for a cultural and educational panel. As he said himself this morning, he did not know when he was appointed by the Minister to the board of IMMA that he would be a candidate for the Seanad. My point yesterday, which I made to the Deputy clearly, concerned accepting the fact that the process within the Fine Gael system was itself flawed because the official dealing with this did not go back to the sub-committee of the executive council. That was the cause of great angst and a cause of concern to me.

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