[7] On the morning the Dáil was due to debate his appointment, a photograph emerged taken outside Dublin's Four Courts on the day a judge ruled that the Maze Prison escaper, James Pius Clarke, should not be extradited to the United Kingdom.

While McDaid stated that his presence at the hearing was due to personal connections – Clarke's mother was a constituent and a patient in his general practice in Letterkenny – the opposition Fine Gael party objected to his appointment and ministers from Fianna Fáil's coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats, indicated their unwillingness to remain in office should McDaid be appointed.

[8] Following Bertie Ahern's election as leader of Fianna Fáil in 1994, McDaid was appointed to the front bench as spokesperson on Equality and Law Reform.

During his tenure he earned the nickname the "Minister for Fun", however, he presided over much more weighty issues such as investigations into controversial events such as drugs allegations in sport and sex abuse by swimming coaches.

He was an unsuccessful candidate for the North-West constituency at the 2004 European Parliament election and was later sacked from his position as Minister of State and returned to the backbenches once again.

In April 2006, McDaid announced that he would be retiring from public life in favour of returning to his medical practice and would not be standing in the next general election and that politics "no longer held any challenge for him".

Under the electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote, it was considered virtually impossible for all three to be elected.

[10] This threat was followed through in November 2008 when he abstained from a vote on the Cervical cancer vaccination programme, resulting in his expulsion from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.

[14] In his resignation letter, he called for a general election before December 2010 and also accused the Government of taking political soft options and not tackling the real issues.