Taoiseach Enda Kenny has staunchly defended himself against claims that he is "so far removed" from the concerns of ordinary people that he has to travel with dozens of gardaí as protection.

Mr Kenny told Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, "I walk to work myself in the morning and walk home again at night, so it's not a case of having corridors of gardaí looking after me.

“Where I come from Deputy Higgins, we’re well able to look after ourselves.”

Mr Higgins had claimed the Taoiseach had to travel with Garda protection because “you have angered so many with your austerity agenda and particularly your water tax”.

He said people did not want to be on the street protesting but warned that the campaign “will intensify if you persist with this at the end of January and February and send out your new water tax bills”.

The Dublin West anti-austerity campaigner warned that if water tax efforts continued there would be a massive boycott. “It will put Captain Boycott in the shade, what you’re going to face.”

He said the Taoiseach could not “mollify people by coming with a supposedly lower charge next week, when people know very well that it will go up inexorably as soon as the pressure is off”.

He added, “Take it from me, I’m speaking for the grass roots here.”

Mr Kenny said he visited a number of areas and “it’s good to listen to different opinions”.

In relation to the anti-water protesters who demonstrate at the various venues the Taoiseach visits, he said, “Sometimes the sound might be a little raucous and you mightn’t be able to pick out what they’re actually saying, though it sounds very vocal indeed.”

He told the Dáil, “Some of it is not normal language you might use in here.”

He said people had a range of different agendas about which they wanted to protest and that that was perfectly legitimate.

He also specified, “I don’t like to see people attempting to block a public road when people are going about their work or attempting to do their job.”

He invited Mr Higgins to visit Captain Boycott’s house and to “talk to the Daly family there and understand the history of how that word came into the English language and what it meant for the people who live there”.