The Rev Ian Paisley was under fire tonight after launching a personal attack on the Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr Brian Cowen.
The Democratic Unionist leader ridiculed the minister over his looks at his party's Assembly election launch in Belfast.
Party members laughed when Mr Paisley declared: "Somebody told me the other day the reason his lips were so thick was that when his mother was bringing him up he was a very disobedient young boy, so she used to put glue on his lips and put him to the floor and keep him there.
"That has been recorded in his physical make-up."
Opponents of Mr Paisley gasped in disbelief at his outburst.
But Mr Paisley insisted no foreign minister from Dublin had a right to have a say in the affairs of Northern Ireland.
"None whatsoever. Yes, away with him indeed and if he wants to use his lips to better effect, he should do it somewhere else and go to people of like physical looks."
Reacting to the DUP leader's comments, Mr Cowen said this evening: "We've gone beyond the failed politics of insults and we have a far more substantial issue to address."
"Political contests are not beauty contests. It is great to be successful in that respect," he said.
SDLP Assembly member Mr Alban Maginness said the DUP leader's comments were "very personalised and ugly".
"These are offensive remarks by Ian Paisley who purports to be a man of God. "No-one could regard those as godly remarks. They are quite ungodly.
"But we are never surprised by the DUP or its leader in terms of the sort of lurid language they use."
PA