Michael Healy-Rae has defended himself from accusations of homophobia after comments he made during a heated debate with Leo Varadkar in the Dáil on Tuesday.
At the end of Leaders Questions, where the Tánaiste was in place of the isolating Micheál Martin, there was a fiery exchange between the pair.
Deputy Healy-Rae accused Mr Varadkar of being 'with the airy fairies' - which Mr Varadkar responded to.
Mr Healy-Rae said: "When I hear some of the nonsense the Tánaiste comes out with, my goodness, he is no man to look down his nose at me as if I am something he stood up on top of. The funny thing about it is that I would not dare to look down my nose at the Tánaiste or anyone else because I do not do that, but maybe he does because he is a bit of a big shot.
"Like I say, off with you with the airy fairies and see how far it will get you. But you can be sure of one thing, it is not a nice thing to look down your nose at me and say what you said to me a while ago. Not nice."
At this point, the Tánaiste took umbrage, as he got to his feet and replied: "And it is not nice what you said to me either, Deputy, just there, quite frankly. Reflect on it and think about it. Just think about what you said. Think about what you said.
"Reflect on it, think about it and come back here tomorrow or the next day and take it back, if you want to."
Both Mr Healy-Rae and Mr Varadkar were both asked about the situation on Wednesday afternoon.
The Kerry TD, speaking to Radio Kerry, said: "Leo Varadkar wasn't one bit upset at what I said. He pretended he was in order to get out of a corner when he couldn't answer.
"Nobody can tell me that what I said was in any way an insult, not at all because it is not an insult by me. He wasn't upset he was deflecting because he couldn't answer. He let on he got upset because it suited him'
A statement from the Tánaiste's office to the same station read: "The Tánaiste was responding to a series of remarks from the Deputy which were very personalised and an attempt to portray the Tánaiste as not being a ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ person, unlike himself.
"He asked the Deputy to reflect on the matter, think about it, and come back and take it back if he wanted to. We won’t be commenting further.”
And speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, Mr Varadkar added: “All of us from time to time say things that might be racist, homophobic, misogynistic or misandrist… we should call it out… I’m not losing sleep over it."
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