The Oscar-winning actress Brenda Fricker was understood to be angry last night after she failed to make the Late Late Show line-up to promote her controversial new television series on the hepatitis C scandal.
RTÉ has denied that Ms Fricker, who plays a leading role in its €3.8 million series, was excluded from the programme because the Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, was also a guest.
No Tears, a dramatised account of how Irish women were infected with hepatitis C through anti-D, begins on Monday. It is expected that the series will prove embarrassing for Mr Noonan, particularly so close to a general election. He was the minister for health who presided over the handling of the crisis at its climax and he was criticised over the treatment of Donegal woman Brigid McCole.
In the programmes, the minister for health is portrayed as uncompromising and dismissive.
A Late Late Show spokeswoman said there had been no contact from Fine Gael concerning the appearance of Ms Fricker. "I can tell you categorically there were no representations from Fine Gael."
She said Ms Fricker's appearance was never finalised. "She was in the mix but never fully confirmed . . . [she] got huge media exposure because of the programme, including the Marian Finucane Show yesterday morning, and the Late Late tend not to take people after that."
However, it is understood that Ms Fricker would have held off on other appearances if she had known she was to appear on the Late Late Show. "I can only confirm that I'm not going on the show and Michael Noonan is," she told The Irish Times.
A Fine Gael spokeswoman said Mr Noonan was invited in early December to appear on the show. It had been provisionally agreed that he would appear on either the first or second show after Christmas. At the time they were contacted, Mr Noonan knew nothing about the No Tears series, and when last night's date was agreed it was before it was known that the programme was being broadcast on Monday. No representations had been made concerning Ms Fricker, she added.
The series, which is centred on two fictional women, is based on real events.