It is understood that Kenny has accepted an invitation to join D'Arcy on his popular morning radio show on Today FM. Just last month, D'Arcy branded Kenny as "anaemic" and "insipid", ranking him alongside SUV drivers and open sandwiches among the things that irritate him about modern Irish life.

While Fine Gael played down the criticism, it is believed that D'Arcy's outburst caused some irritation in the party. Asked at the time if Kenny would welcome the chance to appear on D'Arcy's show to refute the comments, his spokesman replied: "Enda is a very busy man. He has a lot of Dail commitments".

However, with the Dail not due to resume after its Christmas break until Wednesday, Kenny has accepted the offer from the show and made himself available for a chat with D'Arcy at 9.40am on Tuesday.

D'Arcy is widely regarded as one of the most likable people in the broadcasting business, but he didn't pull his punches in relation to Kenny in December during an on-air discussion with his programme team, prompted by an earlier interview with the author of the best selling book, Is it just me, or is everything sh*t?

When D'Arcy was asked for his personal pet dislikes, he listed SUVs and open sandwiches before moving on to the Fine Gael leader. "I don't want to get personal but Enda Kenny, Enda Kenny!" he said.

Asked what Kenny ever did to him, D'Arcy replied: "It's not what he did, it's what he didn't do. Do you know, he's about as charismatic as a sort of. . . you know when you cook, you boil potatoes and you leave them in the fridge for about four days and they have that sort of anaemic, sort of insipid look about them? That's Enda Kenny, you know what I mean?

And it's unfortunate because we need a real alternative to the present government and we don't have it in Enda Kenny. . . It's true. It's true".

The comments were picked up by the Sunday Tribune and the following day by a leading tabloid which ran a picture of Kenny superimposed on a large potato.

Despite the criticism, Kenny has been an undoubted success since taking the leadership of Fine Gael, surprising many commentators with his strong performance in turning around his party after its disastrous 2002 election showing. Kenny also recently appeared on the prime time Tubridy TonightTV chat show, where he did a passable impression of John F Kennedy, quoting a passage from one of the former US president's speeches.