A Fine Gael TD has been criticised for calling a commenter a "moron" on Twitter.
A row broke out last night after Dublin Fingal TD Alan Farrell tweeted a CSO graphic released by Fine Gael showing a drop in unemployment.
Mr Farrell’s tweet said: “Lowest unemployment rate in 5 years #allaboutjobs #dail”.
@AlanFarrell @Garathon66 cos people had to emigrate for what yous did !! Gobshites taking credit for pushing loved ones out of the country
— Fiona (@fionamitchell56) November 26, 2014@fionamitchell56 @Garathon66 Jobsbridge, unpaid 'internships', zero hours contracts etc, & @AlanFarrell has the gall to call voters 'morons'
— Sinister Puppy (@CraigFitzsimon1) November 26, 2014Fox News gets panned for this sort of graphic. How long is the X axis? Why does the Y axis start at 10.9% and not 0%? pic.twitter.com/9iiX93BlIE
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) November 26, 2014I have a graph to help understand what @AlanFarrell going to do next: @gavreilly and @FineGael is this a good graph? pic.twitter.com/NadpfDfbos
— David Kenny (@Garathon66) November 27, 2014The graphic was then criticised on the site for its lack of information and clarity.
Today FM journalist Gavan Reilly particularly took issue with FG’s presentaion of the CSO graphic, its lack of information and context.
Fine Gael replied to Reilly’s tweets, explaining they were released by the CSO, and offered another graphic.
One Twitter user, David Kenny, replied to Mr Farrell's tweet with "And what's the chart supposed to illustrate? Ice-cap size plotted against number of pirates? Utter nonsense."
Mr Farrell, a former mayor of County Fingal, replied to the tweet with, “Yes, of course you are right. A circa 25% reduction in unemployment since taking office is nonsense. Moron.”
Criticism on Twitter of the TD over the response has followed.
Mr Kenny has since produced a satirical graphic charting non-existent apologies offered to him by the TD.
Efforts by The Irish Times to contact Mr Farrell for comment have been unsuccessful.