Lenihan withdraws fascist remark

INTEGRATION Minister Conor Lenihan has retracted his claim that a Fine Gael TD was a fascist, but took a swipe at the opposition party for being “precious” on the issue.

There were angry scenes in the Dáil on Wednesday night after Mr Lenihan labelled Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar a fascist and allegedly made a Nazi salute.

Fine Gael immediately called for Mr Lenihan to withdraw the remarks and apologise for his actions, saying it was inexcusable for the Integration Minister to behave in such a fashion.

Yesterday, Mr Lenihan conceded that he had called Mr Varadkar a fascist, and retracted the remark. However, he insisted he had merely thrown a “half-wave” rather than a Nazi salute, and accused Fine Gael of being “precious”.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Mr Lenihan said: “My comments were directed at Leo Varadkar because of comments he’d made about immigrants which were the exact same basically as the British Nationalist party (BNP), which is a fascist party.” Mr Varadkar had suggested earlier this year that jobless migrants be paid to return to their native countries under a voluntary repatriation scheme similar to that operating in Spain.

Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney rejected the suggestion that Mr Varadkar was espousing BNP-type policies, saying: “I would say that that is total rubbish.”

In response, Mr Lenihan said he would be happy to withdraw the remark but couldn’t resist another dig at Mr Varadkar. “I’ll be delighted to withdraw it, because I certainly don’t think that Leo Varadkar is a fascist at all. [But] he certainly advocates policies that are very close to the BNP.”

He admitted he had made a “mocking gesture” in the Dáil, but insisted it was not a Nazi salute. “Not at all. It was a half-wave,” he said.

Shortly after the radio interview, Mr Lenihan formally retracted the fascist remark.