Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I understand I will have an opportunity to contribute again later when we might get another chance to discuss the content moderators.

As for the notion that we will spend our summer outdoors, it would, as people say, be a lovely little country if only we could put a roof over it. Last weekend, Dublin City Council put a fence around an open space where people gather. I fully respect that the residents have issues with people gathering outside their houses but I am also conscious that the Government advice is to go outside and spend the summer outdoors. I raised this with the Tánaiste last week on Questions on Promised Legislation. We need a plan and it has to involve toilets and bins. We can put any nice names we want on them, but it is toilets and bins that will be needed in order that people can enjoy the summer outdoors.

It was put to me during the week that it is almost as if the Government is saying, "Irish people, you just cannot have nice things." That should not be the case. If we are to have any kind of summer at all, we need to spend it outdoors. We do not know when we will be able to have everybody indoors together.

Will the Tánaiste comment on what happened in Portobello? I do not want to see that happen in my area. I want to see residents respected - of course I do - but, for the want of outdoor toilets and bins, an entire area was closed off. We cannot keep shunting people around and, at the same time, tell them the message is to go outside if, when they go outside, there is nothing there for them except a fence. Gardaí have to police people trying to get to one area. That is a waste of their time and a waste of Garda resources. Somewhere in the city, while gardaí were standing policing a fence, a crime was being committed. There has to be a plan to marry the two elements because it is not fair to tell people to go outside but not to go to this or that place and then to move them on all the time.