Cowen says Paisley's insults inappropriate

The Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen says he believes personal insults about him made by DUP leader Ian Paisley were inappropriate.

At the launch of his party's election campaign, Mr Paisley remarked about Mr Cowen's facial appearance, and even made reference to his mother.

Speaking in Dublin at the launch of a guide to the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, Minister Cowen quipped that "politics is not a beauty contest".

He said he will let the Irish people decide themselves about Mr Paisley's remarks: "Rather than me reacting in a personal way to it, I won't. Those personal comments have been made," he said.

"I'm quite prepared to allow the discernment and judgement of the Irish people to decide the merits or otherwise of those comments. I do think genuinely that we have gone beyond the failed politics of insults."