Mary Robinson speaking at the Fast Forward Women's Innovation Forum in New York yesterday Source: SIPA USA/PA Images

FORMER IRISH PRESIDENT Mary Robinson has said that Donald Trump’s “terrible” comments at the United Nations provoked a “gasp of dismay” in the room.

Robinson, who served as a High Commissioner in the UN for five years, said Trump’s behaviour means the world is now facing “very dangerous times”.

At the UN General Assembly this week, the US President threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea.

Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week programme, Robinson said that the room of world leaders was shocked by Trump’s threat.

“I’ve been coming to New York for the UN General Assembly since 1997, that’s 20 years. I came first in my first week as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and I’ve never known a more fractious and tension full United Nations,” she said.

First of all, that terrible comment by President Trump on Tuesday that he in effect said that he could obliterate the North Korean people. I mean there was a gasp of dismay what that happened. I heard one person remark that he had sullied the United Nations, because it’s the home of peace, security and development for the world.And secondly he’s threatened to jettison the Iran nuclear deal, which the United States is only one partner in. And now Iran has fired a missile because they’re now worried about their situation if an agreement that they have forged with six partners is going to be breached.

“The New York Times has an editorial this morning, a long editorial has said that Mr. Trump squanders the world’s trust. This is a very dangerous times,” Robinson added.

Trump’s threat to destroy North Korea prompted its leader Kim Jong-un to call the US President “mentally deranged”.

Yesterday, US bombers and fighter escorts flew off the coast of North Korea in a show of force against its nuclear weapons programme.