An unknown artist walked into the national gallery and pinned the portrait to the wall in a room usually reserved for paintings of the country’s most famous citizens. The National Gallery said it called in the police after the painting had been up ‘for no more than 20 minutes’.

“It was not authorised to be on display and the Garda are investigating,” the gallery said in a statement.

On Monday night, Irish state television featured a news story about the portraits as part of their main evening bulletin, broadcasting one of the nude pictures as part of the item. The state broadcaster, RTÉ, received a number of complaints, including one from the Taoiseach’s office.

During the following evening’s main news program, newscaster Eileen Dunne read a statement apologising for the piece: “On last night’s programme, we carried a report on the illicit hanging of caricatures of the Taoiseach in two Dublin galleries. RTÉ News would like to apologise for any personal offence caused to Mr. Cowen or his family and for any disrespect shown by our broadcast,” Mrs. Dunne said.

One of the paintings

The apology was met with widespread dismay from citizens, annoyed that the state broadcaster had to apologise for reporting something which was not inaccurate or misleading. The idea of political interference with news reporting has also rocked the country, which is already trying to deal with an economy in tatters.

Now, fresh life has been breathed into the controversy after it emerged that detectives had visited the offices of a national radio station looking for emails it had received from the artist responsible for the works.

The officers claimed that hanging up the nude images could be deemed illegal under incitement to hatred, indecency, and criminal damage legislation. The criminal damage charge regards the nail in the wall of the gallery from which the portrait hung. They asked for the artist's email address and phone number.

The artist behind the paintings has since presented himself to a police station for questioning.

However, any hopes by the Taoiseach that the images would disappear have themselves vanished as Irish people, incensed by what they see as censorship, have taken it upon themselves to engage their own artistic talents and produce other images depicting the under-fire Taoiseach in far less flattering poses and images.

Hundreds of images have found their way onto the internet, mostly depicting Mr. Cowan in an unfavourable light, concentrating on an over-weight, thick-lipped caricature.

Brian Cowan has had a far from happy tenure as Taoiseach since he assumed power after the resignation of predecessor Bertie Ahern in May 2008. In his time as leader, Ireland has regressed from one of Europe’s best economic performers to its worst. He has presided over Ireland’s failure to ratify The Lisbon Treaty (which was aimed at streamlining the workings of the EU), the country has witnessed massive banking scandals, and the budgets introduced under his leadership have been grossly unpopular.

In many ways, he has been hung out to dry.

Ciaran Walsh for RT