A Sinn Féin TD disputed claims made about Varadkar by Musk.
Elon Musk has taken to his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to criticise Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
The tweets come following the knife attack outside the Gaelscoil Coláiste Mhuire in Parnell Square East on Thursday that left three children and their adult carer injured and the subsequent riots which broke out in Dublin city centre.
In the ensuing chaos, three buses, three Garda patrol cars and one Luas tram were set alight, while 13 properties were attacked and substantially damaged.
Speaking in a media briefing on Friday morning, Varadkar condemned those involved in the riots, stating that they "brought shame on Ireland".
"These criminals did not do what they did because they love Ireland. They did not do what they did because they wanted to protect Irish people," he added.
"They did not do it out of any sense of patriotism, however warped. They did so because they're filled with hate, they love violence, they love chaos and they love causing pain to others.
"Looting a shop was more important to them than protecting the lives of our children."
The Taoiseach also spoke about ways the Government plans to prevent a repeat of such events, explaining:
“We will pass new laws in the coming weeks to enable the Gardaí to make better use of the CCTV evidence they collected yesterday. Also we’ll modernise our laws against incitement to hatred and hatred in general – and that is more required than ever was the case before. We'll do that in weeks as well.
“I think it’s now very obvious to anyone who might have doubted it that our incitement to hatred legislation is just not up to date. It’s not up to date for the social media age. And we need that legislation through, we need it through within a matter of weeks."
Elon Musk takes aim at Leo Varadkar in series of tweets about Ireland
Responding to a tweet accusing the Irish Government of attempting to use hate speech laws to take away people's "freedoms", Musk wrote: "Ironically, the Irish PM hates the Irish people."
Replying to other tweets on the same topic, the X owner also said that this would be the current Irish Government's "last term in office" and that it "clearly cares more about praise from woke media than their own people".
Musk also responded to a Tweet stating that Conor McGregor "should run for office" and "kick these losers out", writing: "Not a bad idea".
Sinn Féin's health spokesperson David Cullinane hit back at the X owner's claim that Varadkar "hates the Irish people", retweeting it with the caption: "No he doesn’t."
This article originally appeared on Joe.ie.
READ ON: Six-year-old injured in Dublin school stabbing attack released from hospital
