Mr. Martin Collins:

I would not claim to be an expert on the land development Bill. The ITM may have done analysis of it but I am open to correction on that. We do have a legislative framework for the provision of Traveller accommodation, namely, the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998, which places a legal obligation on local authorities to carry out an accommodation needs assessment, develop a five-year Traveller accommodation programme and work on its implementation. It is not being respected or complied with by local authorities, however, and that is because at local authority level, as the Deputy alluded to, Traveller accommodation is heavily politicised. There is inherent racism in the system. Some public representatives have said to me over the years that voting for Traveller accommodation would be like a turkey voting for Christmas. Many other public representatives have said to me in confidence they would prefer if Traveller accommodation were taken out of their hands because it is politically too sensitive.

Precedents have been set whereby local authorities have had some powers taken away, such as through the National Roads Authority. It was felt our local authority system or structure did not have the capacity to deal with some of the national infrastructural projects, so we set up the National Roads Authority. That was one power taken away from local authorities. Likewise, it was felt our local authority system was too fragmented and could not deal with our water infrastructure, so we set up Irish Water, or Uisce Éireann, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Precedents have been set up where it was felt-----