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A councillor is standing by his claim that the vast majority of Muslims do not want to work.

Councillor Séamus Treanor was giving Monaghan Municipal Council statistics he got from Denmark when he remarked: "[Denmark] had let in 30,000 of them and five years later 99% of them were on the dole."

He refused to apologise today, telling the Irish Daily Mail: "I don't take back a bloody word of it."

He added: "The bloody liberal brigade in this country needs a kick up the backside. Britain will stop them coming in now [after Brexit] and the next target will be Ireland."

A former worker in the bread industry, the 69-year old veteran councillor declared: "Why would they [Muslims] want to work when they're getting handouts? They are coming in droves."

When asked if he was accusing the entire Muslim population of being work shy, he told the paper: "I'm not referring to the medical people who come in; the nurses and doctors, they're fine. But taken all in all, I stand by my position."

The councillor said his remarks were based on data, explaining that "someone looked into it and said on the radio that it was right".

He said: "If 98% or 99% of them are on the dole in Denmark, then what the hell's different in Ireland?"

An online petition is now underway, calling for Councillor Treanor to resign and claiming it has more than 600 signatories.

Councillor Treanor's comments were first reported by the Monaghan-based Northern Sound newspaper which received several letters complaining about the remarks.

Former TD and council colleague, Paudge Connolly, said the controversial remarks were made at the meeting after he [Councillor Connolly] proposed the council send a letter of condolence to the French embassy following the massacre in Nice.

Cllr Connolly said: "We were after having a tragedy in the south of France and I proposed we sent a letter of condolence to the French Embassy and it was after that that Séamus made his comments.

"We do have free speech - and one of the things about that is that you might not like what you hear."

Sinn Fein members Sean Conlon and Brian McKenna condemned the comments as "sectarian and inflammatory", though they had not attended that local authority meeting.

What do you think of the councillor's comments? Let us know in our Comments section below