{"id":624875,"date":"2026-09-15T00:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T00:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624875\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T00:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T00:30:14","slug":"stand-back-and-reflect-and-listen-taoiseach-reacts-to-olearys-rape-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624875\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stand back and reflect and listen’: Taoiseach reacts to O\u2019Leary\u2019s rape comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Taoiseach<\/a> said he is \u201cdisappointed\u201d by rape comments made by Ryanair chief Michael O\u2019Leary, and said that men in general need to \u201ccop on\u201d in terms of their language.<\/p>\n

However, Miche\u00e1l Martin refused to say whether Mr O\u2019Leary should apologise for the remarks, despite being accused of trivialising rape by victims\u2019 groups.<\/p>\n

The billionaire was heavily criticised by politicians in both Ireland and the UK after he said this week it was \u201cabsolutely\u201d appropriate to compare competitor airlines to \u201crapists\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He was urged to offer a \u201cswift apology\u201d by the chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC), Rachel Morrogh, who said he had trivialised rape.<\/p>\n

When asked about the comments, Mr Martin said he was \u201cdisappointed\u201d by them, and called on Mr O\u2019Leary to listen to the voices of women.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think men in general just need to cop on in terms of how we use language. Rape is the most horrific crime,\u201d the Fianna F\u00e1il leader said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt violates a person and has a lifelong impact on the person. Whereas, in the past, language like that was used interchangeably, I understand that, and I\u2019m not trying to be overly preachy or anything like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think Michael O\u2019Leary should just stand back and reflect and listen to the voice of women on this occasion, this is a genuine view.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not political correctness or anything like that. It\u2019s the right approach not to be using that language in the way he did, because I don\u2019t think it was intentional on his part, but it conveys a sense that rape is like anything else that happens in life, it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an awful, awful violation of a person, which leaves a terrible trauma, and that\u2019s the point. And we all have to\u2026. people can\u2019t speak out of sync, you know, and so on like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I would just say, stand back and reflect and listen, and maybe respond more appropriately.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked if he should apologise, Mr Martin said: \u201cI would leave it to him to deal with it in the best way possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Leary made the comment ahead of his airline\u2019s annual general meeting in Dublin on Thursday.<\/p>\n

He claimed rising air travel prices at other airlines would see passengers switch to Ryanair.<\/p>\n

He told reporters at the company\u2019s headquarters: \u201cYou might find some people will choose not to fly with Ryanair \u2013 but you know they\u2019ll be overrun with the people abandoning Aer Lingus, Lufthansa, BA, and others desperate to get to Ryanair\u2019s low fares because they can\u2019t afford to fly with the high-fare rapists around Europe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He later repeated the \u201chigh-fare rapists\u201d comments.<\/p>\n

Asked by the Press Association whether this was appropriate language, Mr O\u2019Leary told reporters: \u201cAbsolutely.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He later said rape was a \u201cterrible crime\u201d but rejected the assertion he was trivialising rape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach said he is \u201cdisappointed\u201d by rape comments made by Ryanair chief Michael O\u2019Leary, and said that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,1843,1899],"class_list":["post-624875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-micheal-martin","tag-ryanair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}