Fine Gael leader Simon Harris has said he apologises unreservedly for the interaction he had with a disability worker in Kanturk, Co Cork, last night.
He said that there was no excuse for not giving Charlotte Fallon the time when she spoke to him about supports for disability and carers in a supermarket.
Mr Harris said: "She was absolutely owed an apology.
"The buck stops with me entirely here. I'm annoyed with how I didn’t give Charlotte the time last night. She deserved that time."
He said that he called Ms Fallon this morning and they "had a very good" conversation with her and he talked through his plans and visions for disability services.
Mr Harris said he also asked if he could call to visit her workplace on the coming weeks.
Asked if the exchange was because he is tired, he said it was "not at all".
He added: "I’m not making any excuses. The buck stops with me."
The Fine Gael leader had a brief encounter with Ms Fallon, who identified herself as a Section 39 worker while he was canvassing in Supervalu in Kanturk.
The woman asked Mr Harris if she could ask him a question and said that carers have, in her view, been "ignored".
When Mr Harris said, "no you weren't", she responded by saying "yes we were, the disability sector is a joke, you've done nothing for us, our people are suffering".
Watch: Woman raises disability issues with Simon Harris in Cork supermarket
After a brief exchange, the Fine Gael leader shook the woman's hand and began walking away, before coming back.
The woman said, "keep shaking your hands, pretend you're a good man, you're not a good man", at which point Mr Harris said: "Okay well if you don't think I'm a good man..." and walked away to meet other people on the canvass.
Earlier, his party colleague Neale Richmond said he believed the outcome of the meeting between Mr Harris and Ms Fallon will be positive.
He told RTÉ's Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin programme:"They've agreed to meet and agreed to actually discuss what more needs to be done on foot of a budget where we've increased the carer’s grant, increased the payment, and a manifesto commitment to remove the means test as well as review the pay and salary going to Section 39 workers.
"I think that'll be a really productive meeting and anyone who knows Simon Harris - and I’d argue I know him better than most - knows that this is the very reason he got into politics as a 14-year-old, to get additional services for his brother in Greystones.
"He’s brought that to the fore at every opportunity be it on a county council - as chair of the disabilities committee - or indeed now as Taoiseach of our country."
Footage of the interaction has been viewed more than 1.5m times on the RTÉ News X account, and almost 500,000 times on Instagram.
Speaking on an Instagram Live this morning, he said he "should have taken the time to engage" with the woman saying "there's no excuse on my part in relation to that".
"I was in Kanturk last night at the end of a very long day and I was talking to a woman who works in a Section 39 disability organisation and she was raising issues with me and I want to say I didn't give her the time that I should've given her and I feel really bad about that because it's not who I am," Mr Harris said.
He added: "It's not what makes me tick. I really, really passionately believe in disability services."
He said he hopes to have a longer conversation with the woman so that she and others know he’s "in the business of listening, of learning, and of acting when it comes to disability services".
Mr Harris also said that disability is an area he is determined to prioritise if he is elected taoiseach again, saying it is one of the reasons he got involved in politics.
"We’ve got to look after people with disabilities. We’ve got to empower them. We’ve got to support carers better and those who work in disability services."
Follow live General Election updates
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said it is very important that political leaders listen to people as they are campaigning.
She was responding to the video of the exchange between Mr Harris and a care worker.
Asked if she had seen the video, Ms McDonald said that she had and that the woman was clearly raising an issue about the lack of provision for disability services, disabled people and carers.
She said that the woman was clearly "very upset and very passionate about that.
"The experts on all of these matters are people out on the ground," she said.
Ms McDonald said that good government is about hearing peoples concerns.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns described the Fine Gael leader's attitude as dismissive, adding that it was emblematic of the Government's lack of interest in the disability sector.
Labour's Marie Sherlock said the exchange crystalised years of Government neglect of disability workers.
Additional reporting Tommy Meskill
