Elaine Loughlin

Yeah, I think this is constantly on both sides of the border, it has to be said, is constantly bubbling under the surface.

And immediately after that happened,

I was obviously in Leinster House this week and politicians up to cabinet level were quite worried that this might spill over onto the streets of Dublin.

And we did have, it has to be said, quite a small protest outside Leinster House this week.

Thankfully went off peacefully and people are entitled to protest and voice their concerns and disgruntlement.

It's thankfully we do live in a democracy.

But I think when communities do feel disenfranchised with the political system and perhaps feel like they've been left behind, that it can sometimes allow bad actors to come in and perhaps sway public opinion, as we've seen in Northern Ireland.

into rioting, into violent behaviour and, you know, perpetuate these, what are falsehoods about people who've come to our country, about immigrants who are, you know, keeping the, we'll talk about the health service later in this discussion, but who are keeping the health service afloat, who are doing a lot of jobs that we wouldn't have people to fill if we didn't have people coming with skills and talents to this country.

But

a different narrative around that cohort is put forward.

And it's a kind of a them versus us, really dangerous narrative, as we've seen in Belfast.

Well, look, you can't blame the government or politicians for racist elements out there, but you can certainly blame the government and successive coalitions for the lack of movement on housing.

And we even had the housing minister out this week saying, yes, homelessness is going to be a problem for the coming years.

And he doesn't seem to have James Brown.

have any real plan to address that.

Like he's acknowledging it's going to get worse and we've over 17,000 people in homelessness now.

So if you have that strain on the housing market right the way from people trying to get a mortgage to those trying to rent to those in emergency accommodation, families with kids in hotels or homeless hubs right now and going from pillar to post and hoping that that bed is still available for them tonight and the housing minister doesn't really have

any concrete timelines or plans to get those people out permanently.

I think it was for many women who have gone through perhaps complicated pregnancies, who have had miscarriages, who perhaps have had a real struggle to get pregnant in the first place.

And I think the issue here is Sláinte Care is a decade-long transformation of the healthcare system that was agreed cross-party.