Tánaiste Leo Varadkar hit out at Sinn Féin deputy leader Pearse Doherty over “cheap shots” in a heated debate in the Dáil on Thursday.
Mr Doherty said as the ESRI was finalising its latest report on energy poverty in the State on Wednesday night, with prices increasing at their fastest rate in 40 years, Mr Varadkar was hosting a private dinner to “celebrate Fine Gael’s decade in power”.
“So whilst you toasted your own success in government last night, the reality is that many families out there are being pushed to the brinks, and let me tell you this, Tánaiste, the last thing they are thinking about is raising a glass to Fine Gael success because what they are worried about is how they can get to the end of the week,” Mr Doherty said.
In response, Mr Varadkar said this was a “cheap shot” by the Donegal TD and that the dinner was to “thank colleagues” for years of service and that there was “no public money involved”.
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“You host dinners in America. You charge people $1,000 a plate to attend, and your party leader flies first class to get there. That’s what you do in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis,” Mr Varadkar said.“ I believe she’s [Mary Lou McDonald] about to announce another first-class trip to Australia,” where she would be “clinking champagne glasses with Trinity alumni.
“So that’s a cheap shot, particularly coming from a hypocritical party like yours, a party that receives millions of donations from vagabonds who live in a caravan, a party that is one of the biggest landlords in the State and a person who operates his constituency office using public money from some sort of republican company.
Mr Doherty said he thought somebody who the DPP was currently assessing whether they would prosecute under the Corruption Act, “would be a bit more humble” in responding and that the ESRI’s latest findings were “a report of shame”. He was referring to the Garda investigation of the leak of a GP pay deal contract by Mr Varadkar to a friend.
Mr Varadkar said this was “another cheap shot and a very personal shot”.
“It says a lot about you and the nature and the character of the kind of person you are and it’s particularly strange coming from you because you were prosecuted,” Mr Varadkar said. “You abused, mistreated a Garda Síochána, for that you were prosecuted, you were found guilty. You got away without a conviction because of your age at the time, but you were actually prosecuted, you were arrested.
“That’s what happened to you and there are a huge number of convicted criminals in your party and in your wider republican family.
“Whether that is tax dodgers like Slab Murphy, a good republican, according to Mary Lou McDonald, a good republican, a tax dodger, people who are convicted for murder.”
Mr Doherty later issued a statement to say he was involved in a “very minor breach of the peace” in Dublin city centre almost 30 years ago. “It was dealt with under the probation act. It has been covered in the media. The fact that the Tánaiste has to grasp for this to cover his decade long failure in government is very telling, ” he said.
