A muddy verge skirting a bend on one of Ireland's busiest roads will soon be home to a Christmas baby. For this is where Brigid Connors's caravan is parked. Her baby girl is due on Christmas Eve.
The small caravan outside Rathcoole is already home to her sons, Miley (10), Tommy (8) and "her fella".
The rain is driving down and inside the cushions on the bunks are damp as a window is broken and the roof is leaking.
There is no heating as Brigid doesn't have £15 to buy a cylinder of gas. She has gas for the cooker she uses to heat water for washing clothes and for cooking. The fluorescent bulb on the ceiling is powered by a car battery and the black-and-white portable television is powered by another.
"It's very awkward to get to the shops . . . we have to cross the road to get water from the garage. And the kids can't go out because the traffic is so bad," she says. "A typical day means getting up, making tea, then breakfast, watching telly and trying to dry clothes. The odd day we go to the shops in Clondalkin."
The family was in a house in Tallaght but it was broken into and their television and video were stolen. Then they lived in a caravan in Clondalkin. "It was full of rats," says Tommy, who is holding up photos of happier times - his birthday in the sunshine, a visit to Burger King. At school in Clondalkin, Tommy says, he "had no one to play with". Brigid explains they were all settled children but says her boys were happy there.
Moved on twice from Clondalkin, they have spent the past few months stopping at various points on the Naas road. The boys don't go to school at present.
They've been parked on the present site for two weeks. It slopes steeply into a ditch full of rubbish. There are bits of old lino and carpet, parts of cars, bits of rope, old shoes tumbled in the mud. Brigid says there's nowhere to throw the rubbish.
"We have to go miles across the fields to go to the toilet," she adds. Her caravan is flanked by six cars, one with the front windscreen smashed. Another caravan behind hers is home to a young couple.
So, what would Brigid Connors like for Christmas? She's looking forward to the birth of her daughter but would like to bring her home from the Coombe to somewhere warm and dry.
"I'd like a caravan or a mobile or a house or a flat. I'm not particular about wanting one thing," she says.