A TD has been called a racist in the Dail, after questioning the amount of money being sent from Ireland to Nigeria.
Noel Grealish asked the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar whether money being sent out of the state to foreign countries is being monitored.
He cited figures from the World Bank - which show hundreds of millions of euro being sent from Ireland to Nigeria every year.
He claimed that over the past eight years, over €10bn has left Ireland by way of personal transfers.
He said this included €843m to Lithuania, €1bn to France, €1.54bn to Poland, €2.7bn to the UK and €3.54bn to Nigeria.
Speaking under Dáil privilege, Independent TD Noel Grealish was criticised by Solidarity's Ruth Coppinger and the Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan for suggesting some of that money was the proceeds of crime.
He said:"An awful lot of it is genuine money, but I just want to ensure a commitment from your Government that there's proper controls in place.
"Money being transferred out of Ireland without proper controls or monitoring needs to stop, Taoiseach.
"And Taoiseach, the question I'm asking to you is what controls are put in place to ensure this money is proper paid, tax is proper paid on it".
In replay, Mr Varadkar suggested: "Everyone in this House will know from the stories their parents told them or their grandparents told them that for many decades and many centuries, Irish people went all over the world and sent back their remittances to Ireland".
