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A homeless man was burned out of his tent by a group of heartless kids who ran away laughing.

A witness has spoken of his disgust after seeing the gang abuse the man before eventually setting his tent alight days after he pitched it up in North Dublin.

The incident happened in Cabra, with local resident John witnessing the whole thing from his apartment window.

John told 4FM's the Niall Boylan Show how the kids were initially throwing stones and rocks at the man, who remained in his tent and ignored them.

The youths then started talking about setting it on fire - at which point John said he rang gardai.

The gang tried a number of times to start the blaze and eventually succeeded, lighting it from the top and forcing the man to jump out of the tent.

The callous gang then ran away laughing with John saying a Council worker who happened to be passing eventually managed to put it out.

He said: "From where I am you can see quite far. A couple of days ago someone moved in with a tent.

(Image: Niall Boylan Show)

"Whoever did wasn't doing any harm - we didn't see them.

"Last night [Tuesday] around 8pm I heard kids shouting and running. So I looked out the window and I saw a man getting out of the tent.

"There was this big group of kids aged around ten and there was probably about ten of them.

"They were running out across the road.

"About a minute later the group of kids came back and were chucking things at the tent. Rocks and sticks and things.

"So I don't know what had gone on before but he had gone back in [to the tent] and was ignoring it.

(Image: Niall Boylan Show)

"Then they start talking about setting fire, and that's when I called the guards."

John went on to say how the kids repeatedly attempted to ignite the tent before fleeing.

He continued: "One of them ran up and lights the bottom of the tent and runs away.

"It runs out and they run back and do it again.

"Eventually they light the top and the group of them runs off. The man climbs out so he's safe he's out.

"Within a couple of minutes the whole tent is on fire."

Luckily, a heroic council worker saw the fire and ran in with a fire extinguisher to quell the blaze while the man was OK after the incident.