Fennelly report: Taoiseach’s ‘spin’ attempts met with fury

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said Mr Kenny should resign immediately and call a general election. In particular, diaries and personal notebooks belonging to the former garda commissioner were sought.

The Fennelly report revealed a tense one-hour meeting in the commissioner’s home, and while there was no express instruction from the Taoiseach to Mr Callinan, the inquiry found he was in no doubt where he stood.

The current Garda Commissioner, Nóirín O’Sullivan, was then-deputy commissioner, and one of the senior officers in possession of numerous details for several months before Mr Callinan was fully briefed.

A spokesman for the Garda Representative Association (GRA) told the Herald last night that the organisation’s stance on Mr Callinan’s dramatic resignation has not changed since the publication of the Fennelly Report into the affair this week.

He is the former secretary general of the Irish Department of Justice.

“She is a very competent and capable Attorney General and she has our full confidence”, Ms Fitzgerald said.

“The report confirms that the former commissioner made a decision to retire, and that he could have decided otherwise”.

The judge-led investigation ruled Mr Kenny did not sack the police chief or intend to pressure him into quitting, but his orders left no choice but for him to “walk off the pitch”.

Socialist TD Clare Daly also hit out at the Taoiseach, describing his explanation a “fairytale”. He says that such was the gravity of his information that he felt he had no alternative but to send Brian Purcell out.

Sinn Fein Justice spokesman Aengus O Snodaigh said Mr Kenny should consider his position.

“What the report says is that it was precisely that visit that was the catalyst to the resignation”.

The Social Democrats have already called for the Dáil to be recalled to discuss the report.