Kerry TD Danny Healy Rae has insisted it is “far from the truth” to say he puts on a “political caricature and a costume to pretend he is working class.”

In the Dáil this afternoon, Labour TD Duncan Smith said Danny and Michael Healy Rae were the sons of “Fianna Fáil privilege and millions of Euro,” pretending to be men of the people.

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, the two TDs continued their dispute.

    

Deputy Smith said the Kerry politicians had made comments during the debate that “really struck a raw nerve” with him and accused the pair of voting against a previous Labour proposal to introduce six weeks of sick pay for all workers.

“I will never be lectured to by anybody that doesn’t support sick pay for their own workers,” he said.

“That is fundamental if you are to understand workers and what workers are going through in this pandemic.”

He said the Healy Rae’s had used the sick pay debate “as an excuse to lash the Labour Party about this that and the other” and insisted that they “did the exact same thing again today.”

"I don't have to put on a political costume and a caricature to pretend I'm working class," @DuncanSmithTD hits back at Danny and @MHealyRae pic.twitter.com/f6784YH530

— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) February 10, 2021

For his part, Deputy Healy Rae denied voting against the sick pay bill, adding, “he will have to check his records and he will have to get his facts right because we did vote for it.”

“He made a claim in the Dáil today that I didn’t understand workers, that I never worked myself and that I was going around in flashy Mercedes car giving orders and that is not the way it was with me ever,” he said.

“I worked on the ground with the workers, whether it was breaking rocks with the machine or whether it was driving lorries or tractors – whatever it was. Whether it was milking the cows before I went to work and again when I came home in the evening, I did it so, I do know about workers.”

Mercedes

He also defended his use of a Mercedes car.

“About my car, it is an 06 car, it has 700,000 kilometres done, it is not finished yet and it is not for sale,” he said.

“When I can see an electric car that will perform like this one has performed for 14 years, I’ll change it then.

“I don’t go around in a flashy Mercedes and a flashy suit; you have to come up to Dublin to find these kind of lads with shiny cars and shiny suits.”

Deputy Healy-Rae said the Labour Party has “drifted” since the recession, claiming the party is “not in touch with the working people on the ground.”

Dishonest

Deputy Smith said the Healy-Rae’s present themselves to the Dáil in a “dishonest way.”

“They have this whole, man of the people, understanding workers idea and then when it comes to something like sick pay, they say it is a ‘populist idea’ or it is a ‘complete farce,’” he said.

“That is how they described Labour’s sick pay bill - a complete farce. That is why it is dishonest.”

Deputy Healy-Rae said calling him dishonest was a “very serious allegation.”

“I have a reputation of being honest and straight forward and up straight with the people,” he said.

“To say that I was kind of a limelight person, going around in flashy Mercedes car – that is far from the truth.”

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