AN IMAGE HAS been shared online in recent days which appears to show a rough sleeper on a Dublin street beside an election poster for Fine Gael that features Taoiseach Simon Harris.

The image has been shared by a number of people online, including a Sinn Féin TD, an independent election candidate in Kilkenny and a social media account run by People Before Profit, and has been seen over 130,000 times.

However, the image has been manipulated with photo-editing software to add the Fine Gael election poster.

It was originally taken in 2019 before and was then posted by the satirical news website Waterford Whispers News, before being re-shared by critics of Fine Gael and Harris.

X / People Before Profit X / People Before Profit / People Before Profit

The three X posts found to be sharing the manipulated image were all made on either 7 or 8 November.

They included a post by the official account of People Before Profit, which shared it alongside homeless figures with the caption “This is Fine Gael’s legacy in government”.

The image was also shared on X by Sinn Féin TD Mark Ward, who posted it with a caption saying “A New Energy is cold comfort”, a reference to the slogan on the poster.

A reverse image search of the part of the picture showing the homeless person produces results including a page on the stock image website Shutterstock.

The full version of the original image shows a chocolate bar advertisement instead of the Fine Gael poster.

The positioning of the sleeping bag, flattened cardboard boxes and a water bottle are identical in both images, as is graffiti on the wall and stains on the pavement.

Shutterstock caption information says the photo was uploaded on 11 July, 2019 and was taken in Dublin city centre a week earlier on 4 July, 2019.

Waterford Whispers News originally published the manipulated picture on 7 November 2024, as indicated in the URL of the page link.

The website used the image under the satirical headline: “Homeless asked not to sleep directly in front of Fine Gael election posters”. No earlier versions of the edited image can be found.

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