Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I detest racism or anybody who whips it up. To meet desperate people who are homeless on the streets with hatred and fire is appalling and has to be condemned. I am telling the Minister that I spoke to people this morning in the locality who were equally appalled and oppose absolutely what was done. However, they told me there are many vulnerable people in the area. We need to remember there are 800,000 people living in deprivation in the country, many of whom are heavily concentrated in working-class areas like Pearse Street.

The person I spoke to told me the local population has more than halved over the past 20 years because people cannot afford places to live in the area, while gleaming new blocks spring up around them. Unlike employees of Twitter or whatever, who are well paid, they cannot afford to live in their own area. Right beside the site, an area designated for social housing five years ago has not been redeveloped. This is a problem.

There are neglected working-class communities and people being driven out of their own areas because they cannot afford to live in them due to the failure to deal with dereliction and provide social and affordable housing. That creates the conditions that the far right then comes in and exploits. We need to address that as well.

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