Independent TD Mattie McGrath has accused the political parties of perpetrating “a democratic fraud” on the Irish people in the lead-up to the marriage referendum.

The Tipperary South politician was one of a handful of Oireachtas members to publicly oppose the introduction of same-sex marriage and said on Monday that Senator Averil Power's comments showed up the "hypocrisy" of Fianna Fáil over its position on the referendum.

“What Senator Power has done,” Mr McGrath said in a statement, “is to confirm what everyone in the No campaign knew in the last number of weeks – that the political consensus on the same sex marriage referendum was a populist sham”.

Mr McGrath is himself a former member of Fianna Fáil, but said that Ms Power’s comments proved there was “no political appetite” within that party to see the constitution amended in the way it has been.

“Her comments also indicate that there has been a democratic fraud perpetrated upon all those Irish people who looked to the Dáil for guidance and saw only cross-party agreement where none in fact existed,” he said. “Fianna Fáil has also clearly misled the LGBT community by professing party support for their campaign when none in fact existed.

“This is a matter of the utmost seriousness and points to what I have been saying during the course of the recent debate, that there was a duty on the opposition to offer principled discussion around the complexity of the amendment.

“We needed a truly open and honest political debate and what we got instead was a mirage of consensus in an effort to shore up flagging party support.”