Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell is refusing to apologise to his constituency colleague and Green Party TD, John Gormley, for accusing him in the Dáil of "behaving like a fascist".
The remark was made during lively exchanges yesterday when Mr Gormley asked the Tánaiste if he intended to reconsider legislation allowing tax relief for nursing home owners.
Mr McDowell said no legislation was promised, adding: "Yet again, ideology is blinding Deputy Gormley to reality." When Mr Gormley replied: "Your right-wing ideology is leading to this problem," Mr McDowell said: "Let me answer. There is no point in behaving like a fascist over there."
A spokeswoman for the Tánaiste said last night he had no comment to make one way or the other, apart from pointing out that the comment was made in the context of disorder in the House. "In fact, the Minister feels the apology should be the other way and the Greens should pay him the courtesy of listening in the House. They were shouting him down," she said.
This is not the first time Mr McDowell has been embroiled in a controversy with Deputy Gormley over comments made in the Dáil. Last March he said Deputy Gormley's "type of people" had ransacked the Progressive Democrats' head office in reply to a question about a violent counter protest to the aborted Love Ulster march. Later that day Mr McDowell withdrew the remark.
Also in March Mr McDowell apologised to the Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton for comparing him to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in a row over Garda numbers.
Last night Green Party whip Dan Boyle TD said the "fascist" remark was further evidence that the Tánaiste was "a loose cannon" with little respect for the conventions of the House.
"This is a minister who accused another colleague of behaving like Joseph Goebbels, another infamous fascist figure. The Tánaiste has apparently learned nothing from that particular episode and feels that he can insult with total impunity".
Deputy Boyle said he had written to the Ceann Comhairle asking that the matter be raised at the next meeting of the Committee for Procedures and Privileges scheduled for next Wednesday.
Deputy Gormley said last night he would not be losing sleep over the remark, but he would like it to be withdrawn. "I'm not up there yet with Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. Things are said in the heat of battle but this type of remark is not conducive to good politics".
He said he would not be apologising to the Tánaiste for engaging in lively debate. "We were interrupting, not shouting him down," he said.