Outspoken TD Michael Healy-Rae met with Joe Duffy on RTÉ Radio One’s liveline today to discuss his commentary on Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, telling him to “go with the air fairy”; Healy-Rae said it refers to something “nonsensical”.
Below is the transcript of her talk on RTÉ’s liveline this afternoon:
Duffy: “Do you want to apologize?”
Healy-Rae: “I can not apologize because I have nothing to apologize for. Away with the fairies or away with the airy fairies is a term I use a lot.
Duffy: “We checked the Dáil record. You used it four times as far as we could find, and you did not use it as a noun. You used it as an adjective, but you did not use it in relation to people.
“Now you use it as a noun. Who are the air fairies?”
Healy-Rae: “Every time I ever used it, I used it to describe something that I consider nonsense.”
Duffy: ‘If you used the phrase’ Off with you with the loft fairy ‘, you told the Tánaiste. Are you aware that Tánaiste is homosexual?
Healy-Rae: “Joe, can I start by trying to say, I’ve now made a few attempts to speak and the only man who speaks now is yourself, because you’re not giving me a chance to speak. Can I answer the questions? or not?”
Duffy“Speak up, I’ll get the little fiddle out here, keep talking, nobody’s going to stop talking to Michael Healy-Rae, now Michael would come.”
Healy-Rae: “I would never imagine insulting or upsetting anyone and the Tannaists know that. What happened yesterday was that the Tánaiste was in a crisis, and that I raised the fact that the state had organized a review of our energy security; According to Richard Bruton’s report, we should have a non-commercial energy plant in Ireland.
“The Tánaiste constantly said he was against it; a number of Fine Gael TDs and advisors, they say they support it, but they are on the lookout for their own leader. When this was underlined yesterday in Dáil, instead of answering the questions I raised with him, he took it as personal, which it never was. I would never offend anyone. “
Duffy: “Do you also want to take it back as a nasty use of the sentence?”
Healy-Rae: “There is no dirty use of the sentence; If it was the first time I’ve ever used it, it would be a different story, but I’ve used it continuously.
Duffy: “You used it as an adjective; You never used it to refer to people.
Healy-Rae: “You can not say that, Joe, you can not.”
Duffy: “I can, because I can quote you; do you want me to quote them? You never referred to it as a group of people, never as a noun.
Healy-Rae: “Can I explain to you how shitty this whole argument is? When the Tánaiste said that I might not have understood an answer he gave a few minutes earlier, if I wanted to be picky with the Tánaiste, I would have stood up and looked at him and said, well, you are talking to the Tánaiste. The fact that I’m dyslexic? “
Duffy: “Ahh no, ahh no, no, dyslexia, you used the word dyslexia, would you say that dyslexia is the same as homosexuality? Dyslexia is a disability, homosexuality is not a disability.
Healy-Rae: “It’s extremely unfair when I start making a point and you cut it off and you finish it for me, can I make the point I made, Joe, please? You called me and you called me asked to come. “
Duffy“And you said you’re going to get up sometime, you do not have to talk to listeners, so I have to take the place of the listeners. That is my job today, unfortunately. “
Healy-Rae: “That’s not what I said, Joe. Can I finish the point I’re trying to make?
“I think it’s very unfair for him; he knows in his heart and soul yesterday like all the others who were there know that I would not in any form or fashion use a person’s personal business. It has nothing to do with me or anything else. Work is work. “
Duffy: “May I ask you, Michael, I accept that you are a supporter of homosexual rights because of the world in which we live?”
Healy-Rae: “I have absolutely 100pc, and I just told you, I deal on a terribly regular basis, topics that have to do with people of all different sexualities.”
Duffy: “Have you ever been to a public rally in Kerry or anywhere else to support gay rights?”
Healy-Rae: “For everyone trying to transform what was a perfectly simple debate into something that is not, that is wrong and unfair and untrue and trying to figure out that I am something I am not.
“I have a lot of friends who are gay, I have absolutely no interest in a person’s private business, it’s nothing of my business. No one should ever be offended or offended.”
Duffy: “You are inconsistent that you did not mean it that way?”
Healy-Rae: “And the funny thing about it is, Joe, you know I did not.”
Duffy: “I do not know you. I don’t know you. I don’t know you. I’ve never met you. What do you mean, you know what I know? You know what’s in my stupid head at the moment? That’s what you’re saying. “
Healy-Rae: “Well, I know you’re not much of a person to tell someone else, because all you do is interrupt everything I come out with.”
Duffy: “Well, you said yours and you can have more too, because like I said, you asked that no caller be able to engage with you, so I have to do it.”
Duffy: “Do you agree that Leo Varadkar, the TD as he was then in 2015, came out publicly as gay, one of the first TDs ever with the potential to ruin his career, do you think that was one of the bravest things en Irish politician ever did? Do you think it was brave? “
Healy-Rae: “It was …
Add Comment