Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last week, when the Taoiseach was challenged about the tent city that had grown up on Mount Street, he said the law of the land must be applied and that this would not be repeated. Yet, here we are, and it has been repeated, this time along the Grand Canal where there are now some 100 tents. It is an outrage that any human being would be living in a tent on the side of the street or on a canal bank. However, this is certainly a monument to the Government's abject failure to manage this situation. I ask, therefore, that we have statements from the Ministers, Deputies O'Gorman and McEntee, and that questions are taken from Members of this House.

The situation, and I can speak directly for Dublin, is that the population's confidence in the Government to manage a very challenging situation is now entirely set at zero, and all the evidence of its failure is there to see. It is a deplorable, disgraceful situation, and we need the two Ministers to make statements and take questions from Members.

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