on board Bella Hadid follows Richard Boyd Barrett on Instagram and shares message supporting People Before Profit

Model Bella Hadid has followed People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett on Instagram and shared a post of the Deputy on Thursday evening.

The famous US model shared the post which dates back to January 18 of this year which compared the amount of funding given by government to the Irish horse racing industry and to refuges for victims of domestic violence.

The model, who has over 50m followers on Instagram, shared the post on her story this evening.

The post claims the government provided €88m funding for horse racing and €30m for domestic violence refuges.

“Did you know the government gives more money to the horse and greyhound racing industry than to domestic violence refuges? The Istanbul Convention on combating domestic violence and violence called for one refuge for every 10,000 of population.

“In total Ireland is only providing 29pc of the Istanbul Target. 2,159 requests could not be met in 2020.

“And the government want us to believe they care about women's safety?” Deputy Boyd Barrett said in the post shared by Ms Hadid.

Mr Boyd Barrett also joined the exclusive club of accounts that Ms Hadid follows on Instagram. It is not believed that Deputy Boyd Barrett follows Ms Hadid back.

It is not known how Ms Hadid, of Dutch and Palestinian descent, found the post of Deputy Boyd Barrett as it is over two months old, but a speech made by the Deputy in relation to treatment of Palestinians by Israel did go viral in early March and was viewed more than a million times worldwide.

There are plans within Government to increase capacity in relation to the number of refuge beds available.