Kenny must look at plight on doorstep

ENDA Kenny won a lot of international praise last week for his speech in Washington on immigrants, and rightly so.

But it’s a shame he can’t stand by the same principles for immigrants in his own country.

The level of squalor a group of “Roma” people are living in at a derelict warehouse just outside the capital beggars belief.

The abandoned premises has no sanitation, no running water, no heat and no electricity.

So while the Taoiseach is leading the charge for the rights of Irish immigrants in the US, another minority group are living in Third World conditions on his own doorstep.

When domestic immigrant issues were raised twice in the Dail this week King Kenny was quick to refer them on to his Minister of State David Stanton.

Yet he managed to take the time to correct the Dail record that his video with President Trump had been viewed 50 million times and not 30 million.

Advocacy groups have called for action to ease the plight of society’s most vulnerable living in deplorable conditions in properties not fit for human habitation.

Worryingly, some are slipping under the radar and their numbers are not even recorded in the latest homeless figures of 7,421 – children accounting for 2,546 of them.

Legalise the 50,000 undocumented Irish in the US says Mr Kenny – it would make America better.

Provide an acceptable level of housing for the immigrants and homeless Irish on your own doorstep we say – it would make Ireland better.