FOOTAGE OF A Dáil row in which a Labour TD accused the Healy-Rae brothers of wearing “political costumes” has amassed hundreds of thousands of views on social media. 

The row took place during a Dáil motion on Labour’s National Aggressive Suppression Strategy for Covid-19, which calls for the “maximum suppression” of the virus.

Footage of the debate went viral on social media yesterday, with a video of Labour’s Duncan Smith hitting out at the brothers clocking up over 350,000 views on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

Smith’s contribution came after the Healy-Raes criticised Labour for tabling the motion, with the pair arguing that prolonged lockdowns would negatively impact a number of sectors.

The brothers also hit out at the party for being out of touch with working people.

“Labour: they do not understand work, they don’t understand business,” Michael Healy-Rae said.

“They don’t understand what it is trying to keep a door open, whether you’re a hairdresser or a small butcher or a person in the service industry; they don’t have a clue.”

Danny Healy-Rae suggested that Labour had not considered the effect of multiple Covid-19 lockdowns on people’s mental health, particularly in rural Ireland.

“Do you realise that people need to finish off their homes and to put a roof over their heads,” he said.

“Do you want to keep them in the wilderness for longer? Is that what it’s about? Wake up!”

However, Smith later criticised the contributions of the Kerry-based brothers, accusing the pair of pretending to understand sections of society they were not from.

“They said that we [Labour] didn’t understand working people and said we didn’t understand a carpenter coming to the house having to fix a job,” he said.

“Well I’m the son of a carpenter. I’m not the son of Fianna Fáil privilege and millions and millions of Euro.

“I remember as a kid in the 80s having to take any working going, hanging doors in Finglas just to put a roof over our head and food on the table. I remember that.

“I spent my teenage years working on sites filling skips. Did they? Or did they drive their Mercedes into their big plant hire shops walking past all of their machinery worth hundreds of thousands, to count all their money?”

Smith added that he would not be lectured about understanding workers.

“I don’t have to put on a political costume and a caricature to pretend I’m working class like some,” he said.