Updated 11.07pm

A FINE GAEL TD has warned that Ireland faces “an ISIS situation” if the more extreme elements of water charge protests are not “nipped in the bud”.

He also claimed that protesters in Dublin are “like parasites” and said they “live off country people as they have never acknowledged the role of country people”.

Noel Coonan, a TD for Tipperary North, was speaking during the course of today’s lengthy Dáil debate on the changes to the water charges regime that were announced yesterday.

He was referring to the militant jihadist group known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria which occupies parts of Iraq and Syria where it has declared its own caliphate – Islamic State.

ISIS is notorious for its violent campaigns and has been condemned globally for its recent beheadings of captured journalists and aid workers which have been posted online.

ISIS fighters in Syria Source: AP/Press Association Images

Coonan said that the scenes witnessed in Jobstown at the weekend, where the Tánaiste was verbally abused and had a water balloon thrown at her , were “disgraceful” and said that people he’d met ”are horrified at what’s going on”.

“I think it has been an awakening call for them because they are now concerned about elements of Socialists – the so-called wealthy Socialist Party – led by the Murph [Socialist TD Paul Murphy] and company, and aided and abetted by extremists within our colleagues here in Sinn Féin,” he told the Dáil.

“I think that that needs to be nipped in the bud. The people have given that signal to us now: nip that in the bud. If not we’re facing what is potentially an ISIS situation in Middle East if those people are allowed get on to do what they’re doing. God help this country and people realise that. So we have to nip that in the bud.”

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He later added: “The people protesting in Dublin are led by socialists and do not care about country people. Through the years country people have paid for water through group schemes, private wells and so on.

“The protesters in Dublin act like parasites and live off country people as they have never acknowledged the role of country people.

Socialist TD Paul Murphy has been responding to criticism of the Jobstown protest in the Dáil this evening: