A political row has blown up over Sinn Féin holding up a photograph which is purported to be of a man drinking a can on the steps of a building near the site of the stabbing at a school in Parnell Square in Dublin last week.
In Leaders' Questions, the party's Spokesperson on Enterprise, Trade and Employment Louise O'Reilly held the picture up while questioning Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and said: "Minister, this is what greeted children six days after that traumatic horrific event."
"This picture represents what Dublin city feels like to Dubliners," she added.
Earlier Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald tweeted the same photograph.
Her tweet said: "On Thurs 3 small children & a teacher randomly & viciously stabbed here at Gaelscoil Cholaiste Mhuire. This is pick up time at same school yesterday. For all the hot air and diversions NO lessons have been learned by Govt. NO care or respect. No political accountability."
The Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik criticised Ms O'Reilly for holding up the photograph in the Dáil during Leaders' Questions and accused her of "outrageous grandstanding".
"I want to call out the waving of a photograph of an identifiable individual on our streets in this house. That is wrong," she said.
Fine Gael TD Colm Brophy said: "Deputy O'Reilly attempted to sow more division in response to violence in the capital by producing an image of an unknown man outside Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire on Parnell Square in the Dáil chamber earlier today."
He said referencing a "vulnerable" man was "reprehensible and unacceptable".
