New Fine Gael TD Seán Kyne has defended his record raising concerns about Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) and said the Irish media needs to do “a lot more investigating” into the State agency. Kyne returned to the Dáil on Tuesday after he defeated Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas in the Galway West byelection at the weekend. Kyne previously served as a TD from 2011 to 2020 and has been a Senator since then. Tánaiste Simon Harris welcomed him back to the lower house and said the party accepted the mandate given to Kyne with “humility”. Speaking to journalists alongside the Fine Gael parliamentary party outside Leinster House, Kyne was asked about comments he had made raising concerns over IFI. Issues were raised over the agency’s governance and controls through both a Comptroller and Auditor General report last October and an ongoing unfair dismissal case taken to the Workplace Relations Commission by former IFI chief executive Francis O’Donnell. The Irish Daily Mail had reported that Kyne had contacted an official at the Department of the Environment to raise concerns about an individual who was being considered for a role at IFI. Asked about those comments, Kyne said his interest in IFI is “well documented in the Seanad”. “I’ve been engaging with a number of journalists over a long number of years, many of whom didn’t take a whole lot of interest in Inland Fisheries Ireland when I was trying to raise serious issues of governance, accountability – and obviously there’s a renewed interest in that, and I’d like everybody to look back at my comments on the record of Seanad Éireann over a long number of years,” he said. Asked if he believed IFI should be disbanded given some of the ongoing issues within the State agency, Kyne said he had “called for an independent investigation into IFI over a long number of years”.[ Fisheries agency threw official ‘under the bus’ after protected disclosure, WRC toldOpens in new window ]“IFI themselves carried out an investigation into the board, didn’t obviously call for an investigation into themselves, and that’s long overdue.” He said he has been a “strong voice in relation to Inland Fisheries Ireland over a long number of years,” and encouraged the media to “follow up” on some of the issues he had raised. “And I think ye need to do a lot more investigating in relation to IFI than has been done in the past,” he said. Kyne was one of two new TDs taking their seats in the Dáil on Tuesday. First-time Social Democrats TD Daniel Ennis spoke to journalists outside the gates of Leinster House, before meeting the clerk of Dáil Éireann to sign the members’ register. Newly elected Social Democrats TD for Dublin Central, Daniel Ennis, being greeted at Leinster House by party leader Holly Cairns. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Ennis said he had tried without success to leave a former job after it was raided in 2022 by Revenue and more than 44,000 cigarettes without appropriate tax stamps were discovered. Ennis had continued to work at the bargain shop in Tallaght, which was registered as Domin­icks Bar­gains Lim­ited, until 2023. “I was there, and I was as shocked as anybody when it did happen. And, at the time, I hadn’t got any other options work wise,” Ennis said. He said he had actively looked for other jobs but had “no other opportunities in terms of employment”. He said he had resigned at the earliest opportunity. “Everything I’ve done to this point, whether it be community work, work with young people, has brought me to this point. And if you say I condone criminal activity, I absolutely don’t. And I do that, with my work with young people around youth diversion, crime prevention. It’s something I live by and I’ll continue to do that in Dáil Éireann.” Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said that given her party had overtaken both Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin in both Galway West and Dublin Central, it was “undeniable” that her party was “a real political force”.