Irish comic Tommy Tiernan is facing a worldwide storm of protest after an anti-Semitic tirade in which he joked he would have "got" 10 or 12 million Jews during the Holocaust.

Tiernan has always prided himself on pushing the envelope but this time he may have gone too far.

Tiernan was appearing at the Electric Picnic in Ireland when he launched into an expletive-filled tirade.

"But these Jews, these f**king Jews come up to me. F**king Christ killing bastards. F**king six million? I would have got 10 or 12 million out of that. No f**king problem. Two at a time they would have gone. Hold hands, get in there, leave us your teeth and your glasses."

In Ireland, the Jewish Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter said the comments were "demented" and said the outburst was "disgusting and unacceptable."

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune, Shatter said: "He has quite clearly brought to the surface his own prejudices and what he said is more a commentary on his own prejudices and perspectives. Rather than this being a comic presentation,it sounds more like the deranged demented ramblings of a complete fool, which I don't think reasonable people would remotely take seriously. Quite clearly what he had to say goes beyond the bounds of anything that is acceptable and certainly doesn't deserve being described as comedy"

The Irish comic was speaking at a Q&A at the festival and one of the questions he was asked was about he deals with people who come up after gigs to complain about jokes.

He had prefaced his remarks by saying that comedy was "about allowing whatever lunacy is inside you to come out in a special protected environment where people know that nothing they say is being taken seriously."