RTE star Emer O'Neill has called on Tommy Tiernan to make a statement to Ireland in the aftermath of his controversial Dublin Zoo joke.
Emer walked out of one of Tommy's stand up shows after he made a joke about Dublin Zoo and taxi drivers. Ms O'Neill received an apology from the comedian via email and over the phone after she went public with her concerns.
Emer said she was "thankful" for the personal apology which she called "powerful". However, she told Today with Claire Byrne that it would be "amazing" if Tommy told his followers, fans, and the rest of Ireland what he had learned from the experience.
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Emer said: "I believe he has apologised to me and I am very thankful for that, but it is not only me that was affected by this.
“An apology to me is one thing, but when so many people are affected by this, it is no good to just apologise to me. There is an entire community that have suffered from this.
"This was traumatic for other people because they had to read things like ‘you Africans all need to go back to your own country’. Again, I appreciate the apology to me personally.
"It’s not what I want. I believe it would be an amazing thing to do for him to make a statement to the rest of Ireland so that our community can heal from that.”
The successful comedian also sent in a statement to RTE which Claire Byrne read out. It read: “On Friday January 6, Tommy told a joke on stage as part of his stand-up routine.
“As soon as he received a complaint, he spoke to that audience member to understand where he went wrong. He immediately removed the joke from the set and apologised both personally by phone and email and publicly by addressing it on stage the following night and every night since reiterating his apology.
“Tommy does not condone any negative online comments received by this audience member and most definitely not in his defence.” The statement was read out by host Claire Byrne on her RTE Radio 1 show while Emer was also in studio on Friday.
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