Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I will finish my point and then ask him to reply. I am merely using an extreme example to make a point. The chairperson of the Housing Agency should know better. He should know how his comments would be taken up. I will be blunt with him. I suspect that he did know. I think he knew how those comments would be taken up, and I think that there are people who are in high places in this country, high up in politics and the Government, who like the narrative of the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. It is a divide-and-rule narrative. It is a Tory narrative. Mr. Skehan is being called out on it, and the comments he has made today are at least as bad as those he made previously, if not worse. They are grounds in and of themselves to ask for his resignation, which the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government should do. He will not, because Mr. Skehan is playing quite a useful role for the Government. I will leave it at that.