The president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, Mr Pat Hickey, is "divisive, corrosive, and a national embarrassment", the former minister for sport, Dr Jim McDaid, has said.
Calling on Mr Hickey to resign as part of a top-down reform of the council, Dr McDaid said that if this did not happen "we'll end up in the same embarrassing situation in four years' time".
He was commenting in the wake of Mr Hickey's public criticisms last week of the Irish sailing team's performances.
An OCI spokesman last night declined to respond to the politician's attack except to say that "personality clashes" should not be distracting from the "real issue - the development of Irish sport".
"As far as we're concerned this has been a great Olympics for Ireland, with many personal bests, a gold medal, and lots of great performances, " the spokesman said.
However, he did not dissociate himself from comments quoted in yesterday's Sunday Times and attributed to an unnamed OCI source, which were strongly critical of Dr McDaid.
The source was quoted as saying: "Jim McDaid is not the sports minister, he is dead and buried as far as Irish sport is involved. It's comments like his that are not helpful to Irish sport."
Speaking last night, Dr McDaid, now Minister for State for Transport, said: "Of course I'm not minister for sport any longer. I'm just like any other Irish person. I love sport, and I like to see it being run properly."
He acknowledged that as minister for sport he had rows with Mr Hickey. However he said that, in his latest comments, he was only echoing former Olympian Eamon Coughlan's call for "root and branch reform".
"I'm saying that reform should start at the top," Dr McDaid said.
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