Pressure is mounting on Justice Minister Alan Shatter to establish an independent inquiry into the murder of Roscommon priest Fr Niall Molloy as fresh claims of garda failings in the case emerge.

The Irish Independent has learned that officers failed to investigate a fraudulent insurance claim on a policy, held by the priest, which was made just weeks after his brutal killing in July 1985.

Today in the Seanad, Senator John Whelan will call on Mr Shatter to establish an immediate commission of inquiry into what he described as a "sordid cover-up" perpetrated by several institutions of the state.

Independent deputy Finian McGrath has also called on the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice to instigate an independent inquiry into the case 'as a matter of urgency'.

Fr Molloy (52) was battered to death in the home of his friends Therese and Richard Flynn in Clara, Co Offaly.

Richard Flynn was acquitted of manslaughter by Justice Frank Roe after one of the most controversial trials of the 1980s.

It later emerged that the judge knew the parties in the case through horses and wrote to the DPP Eamonn Barnes in advance of the trial.