Wexford TD Mick Wallace has apologised to a Dáil colleague after he was caught calling her "Miss Piggy" in an exchange with two fellow Independents.
Mick Wallace was heard muttering the remark about Fine Gael’s Dún Laoghaire TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor when he believed the microphones in the chamber were off.
In exchanges with two of his independent colleagues - Luke Ming Flanagan and Shane Ross - Mr Wallace referred to the Fine Gael TD, known for her colourful outfits, as “Miss Piggy”.
The recording was published by blogger Maman Poulet.
“It’s hard to defend the indefensible. I’m very sorry for the offence caused to Mary,” Mr Wallace said this morning. “I’m completely out of order. Ming and Shane Ross had nothing to do with it. It was completely my fault.”
The Wexford TD, famed for his pink shirts and long, curly blond hair, said he passed comment about Miss Piggy and a handbag because of the way the character used to hit other Muppets on the popular TV show. “I don’t have a leg to stand on,” he said.
Ms Mitchell O’Connor said she was very upset and had tears in her eyes when she first heard the comments but is now over it. “It is over as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned this is what happened - there is an old boys’ club, surely to God, in Dáil Éireann. I think women should be treated with respect, not just me, but women in general.
“I would think that any woman thinking that she might go for politics would be turned off today when they hear this kind of chat and banter.”
The former school principal, who famously drove down the plinth on her first day in Leinster House earlier this year, said she would not be pressing for disciplinary action.
Mr Wallace, who said he has learned his lesson, described the remarks as a bit of banter but clearly in bad taste. He also said if “secret microphones” were used elsewhere people up and down the country would be heard passing inappropriate remarks. “But I’ve no right to be passing comments like that and I apologise,” he told RTÉ Radio.
Mr Wallace said he phoned Ms Mitchell O‘Connor this morning to apologise. She was very upset and not interested in talking to him, he said.
Mr Flanagan said this afternoon he had nothing to apologise about. ”All I asked was would she be banned for wearing pink in the same way that a man would," he told RTÉ's News at One.
Transcript of exchange (courtesy Maman Poulet):
Mick Wallace "…Miss Piggy has toned it down a bit today."
Shane Ross: "Who's that?"
Mick Wallace: "Ms Piggy has toned it down a bit."
Luke Flanagan: "That Mary Mitchell O'Connor one. I couldn't remember her name on Vincent Browne."
Shane Ross: "Was she on with you?"
Luke Flanagan: "No she wasn't ... she's the one who drove off the plinth. They'd want to ban her wearing pink."