Heather Humphreys has criticised as “misogynistic” a video where commentator Joe Brolly performed an impression of a presidential candidate performing a sex act.
Ms Humphreys, who is running as the Fine Gael candidate in the presidential election, said she would not allow it to set her back.
“People can make up their own minds on this, but look, I’m a strong woman, and I can tell you one thing, I’m not going to let this set me back. And it was a misogynistic deed. And you know, women across the country have to deal with this type of abuse,” she told South East Radio’s Morning Mix with Alan Corcoran.
“But I stand up for mná na hÉireann, and won’t let this knock me back.”
Ms Humphreys said that Brolly “doesn’t deserve to be talked about, as far as I’m concerned. “I don’t want to dignify it with a further response.”
Ms Humphreys told the local radio station that she did not know “what the thinking was” behind the video.
“But what I can say is, I’m a strong woman, and I’m not going to let something like that knock me back. And in fact, it’ll probably help me, to drive me on even further.”
In the clip, which was widely shared online on Thursday evening, Brolly appears to be impersonating a presidential candidate who is answering questions while performing a graphic depiction of a sex act.
The clip, which was originally posted and then deleted by the Free State podcast, was broadly assumed to be referring to Ms Humphreys.
The Free State podcast recently did a long-form interview with Independent candidate Catherine Connolly.
On Friday morning Brolly issued a statement saying he was referring to the Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin when performing the impression of a sex act, which was captured in a video clip of his podcast recording.
But in a media engagement shortly afterwards, Ms Humphreys said that she felt the video was “very misogynistic” and “it was targeted at women”.
The original podcast episode, posted on Tuesday, had been about how Mr Gavin “came undone” in his bid for the presidency.
The Fianna Fáil candidate announced on Sunday evening following media reports that, 16 years ago, a tenant had accidentally overpaid him by €3,300 and despite repeated requests, he had not returned it.
Using a comparison between the Rose of Tralee pageant and the presidential election, Brolly had suggested on the podcast that Mr Gavin was not suited to the campaign.
“Just to be clear, on the podcast I was talking about Jim Gavin being unsuited to the insubstantial nature of the presidential campaign. It was nothing to do with Heather,” Brolly said on Friday.
The Sunday Independent columnist posted a transcript from the deleted clip, where Brolly says “a lot of us know Jim well and … he’s not sort of, the Irish presidential campaign. You know, it’s a bit like a nasty Rose of Tralee.”
He goes on to attempt to make a joke where a presidential candidate is compared to a fictional pageant contestant who is performing a sex act while describing how they would be a unifying force as president and would lobby for world peace.
“And all of that sounded terribly false coming from Jim,” Brolly concluded.
However, in a statement posted on X a few hours later, Brolly claimed his impression of a sex act “had nothing whatsoever to do with the presidential candidates”.
Describing the gesture as “childish, crude and inappropriate,” Brolly said it “was making fun of the stock questions and responses that happen in a presidential campaign.
“I am very proud of Free State and the production team. My action was in poor taste and should never have happened,” his second statement concluded.
The Free State podcast has so far declined to comment.