Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not prejudge what the expert panel will suggest. I and the Department are open minded on this. Whatever it takes to move this forward, we are willing to make the necessary changes if positive suggestions and recommendations come back on which we can get agreement. Ideally, the expert group will bring the report to the NTACC and it will agree with it and make recommendations to us. We can act on that. This committee will be involved and will track that work too. It would be great if we could get agreement in the committee, too, on what we have to do in this area. I will not shy away from what has to be done.

Given the current way money is spent, the current way of tracking this and the current rules that have been in place for a long time, I am not in a position to be able to lecture the councillors. I will certainly engage and work with them on certain projects. We are doing that at official, councillor and political level across all parties. I will try to work with them to work through all our duties in this regard, but I am not in a position to make them do something. I do not have those powers and I do not want to be given those powers. For now, we must try to work through the process we have. I would have preferred if we had moved more quickly with the next stage of work on the expert panel. We agreed last July to do this, yet we are still here in March and it is not up and running. I hope progress will be made this month at the meetings with the NTACC and that we will get the expert panel established so it can report back to us. I do not see any reason that we cannot have a report back in three months. If it says it needs longer, I will listen, but to be honest, I am not interested in waiting months for reports. We want to get moving on this.

As to whether we will make changes before that, there is not much point in going through a process of having a consultative committee such as the NTACC recommending a report and then recommending an expert panel if I just jump in and make my own decisions. I will not do that. I will see what they send back to me first and then we will make decisions on the recommendations. I certainly have views but there is no point in me prejudging their work. That would be a defeatist attitude. However, I would like the committee to be involved in this and to engage with the expert group. The terms of reference have not been agreed yet but I have been clear to the chair of the NTACC that all the Traveller groups should be involved and consulted on that through all the stages, and that they should have a strong say in it. We are trying to work with them to provide their accommodation needs so they must be involved in the process over the next couple of months. It is time to move this forward as quickly as possible.