A Mexican councilor has provoked outrage after that homeless people should be put down like animals to keep the number of them on the streets down.

Olga Gutierrez Machorro believes that beggars should be culled with lethal injection, believing it to be in their best interests.

She said: “Yes they’re a little crazy, but they’re harmless.

“Which is why I think to myself wouldn’t it be kinder to just give them a lethal injection?”

Unbelievably, Machorro, who is a member of the local government in Tecamachalco, Mexico, is also the councilor responsible for the Vulnerable Groups Commission – who try to find ways to help the homeless and disadvantaged.

Her outrageous remarks, made in an interview with the local newspaper Cambio, came when she alleged the Tecamachalco government, led by Ines Lopez, lacked the necessary resources to deal with beggars who are increasing in number on the streets.

She alleged that killing beggars was already going on unofficially, and added that the local psychiatric hospital, El Batan, often just deposited patients deemed “un-aggressive” in the middle of the motorways at night, where they are killed by cars but also cause accidents that put others at risk.

Machorro has previously offered her own home as sanctuary for those on the streets, but claimed this was not a long term solution.

The councilor’s comments were blasted by locals and she has since apologized.

She has now promised a new action plan which is to be put forward to the government in a bid to solve the problem.