The Irish Examiner
Apprentice star Bill Cullen blasted the Greens as hypocritical after a post to the junior coalition party’s Twitter accounts described him as a ‘permatanned snake-oil selling charlatan’.
The message was posted to the party’s online account at the weekend by a staff member, and later deleted from the online microblogging service ‘as the tone was inappropriate’.

Mr Cullen, a self-made millionaire who became a household name after writing the best-selling ‘It’s A Long Way From Penny Apples’, criticised the Green party on Friday night’s Late Late show, blaming them for a 70% slump in car sales.
‘I’m a straight talking guy and I always speak face to face with people who have problems with me,’ the Apprentice star said.
‘I never feel the need to go into little hidey holes like the Greens with their hypocritical thoughts such as those expressed apparently in their Twitter site.’
The Green party tweet last weekend read: ‘If a permatanned snake-oil selling charlatan like Bill Cullen thinks we’re doing the wrong thing, we must be doing the right thing, right?’
‘The Green Party has been using twitter for several months and we’re still working out on how to best use it,’ a party spokesperson said.
‘We have invited bloggers to come to the Dail this week and will be further discussing politics and online communications with them,’ she added.
Party chairman Senator Dan Boyle later posted a response to the entrepreneur’s Late Late show remarks on his website.
A tweet from the party described the senator’s article as ‘a more appropriate response to Bill Cullen’.
The Senator’s article, which described Mr Cullen’s Late Late Show remarks as ‘hysterical and widely inaccurate’ made no reference to the controversial tweet message.
He said Mr Cullen made the comments ‘purely to serve his own and colleagues’ business interests.’