John McNulty had expressed a wish to serve on a cultural body before his appointment to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma), Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dáil.

He said 29 people had been nominated for the Seanad vacancy, and he had interviewed Mr McNulty who was an excellent candidate and well qualified.

“During the course of the process of validating his eligibility, Mr McNulty expressed a wish to serve on a cultural body because he was intending to serve if elected to the cultural and educational panel,” he added. “He was not nominated until September 17th.”

The Taoiseach said Mr McNulty's curriculum vitae was forwarded to Minister for the Arts Heather Humphreys by Fine Gael officials and she made two appointments to the board of Imma on the same day.

"She has already made the point that she made these appointments in her own right and on her own analysis of the individuals' qualifications and what they brought to the process," Mr Kenny added.

Object of criticism

He said he did not want a decent man to become the object of a barrage of criticism simply because he was qualified in his own right to be a member of the cultural and educational panel for consideration by the Seanad.

The Taoiseach said he was “not happy about the situation as it evolved in the Fine Gael process, nor was I informed of that situation”.

Mr Kenny said he accepted “my own standards were let slip and my own sense of integrity and trust did not measure up”.

He confirmed that Mr McNulty had asked members of the Oireachtas not to vote for him. He said he deemed Mr McNulty to be of "first-class credentials, of good character, who would make an excellent representative".

There was a legal position in that a candidate in those circumstances could not withdraw. “As members know, the ballot papers are printed and the names are on them, so it is not possible for Mr McNulty to withdraw his name,” he added.

Mr Kenny said he accepted responsibility for “taking my eye off the situation when I should have been more diligent about seeing it through”.

He added that the Government had put in place a structure to deal with all appointments to State boards, non- remunerated and remunerated. The appointments, he added, would be free of the political assessment.

Apology

Fianna Fá

il leader Micheál Martin said the Taoiseach had issued an apology on Friday and said that it was not his finest hour. People were wondering what Mr Kenny was apologising for, he added. In appointing Mr McNulty to the board of the Imma for two weeks Ms Humphreys and the Government had used an institution with considerable artistic status as a political tool. “He was clearly appointed to qualify him to contest the Seanad byelection on the cultural and educational panel,” he said.

Mr Kenny said Mr McNulty was appointed to the Imma board by Ms Humphreys in her right as a Minister for Arts and in respect of examining his qualifications.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said what had happened was straight out of Fianna Fáil's handbook of political strokes. There was a candidate who was not a candidate, he said.