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

Deputy Barry has raised several issues specific to Cork and more general issues. I am not familiar with the case of the individual caravan in the field but I will certainly get it checked out. There is no reason for anyone to be living in a caravan without a roof. I would be surprised if it were the case and I would be disappointed with the situation. It is something we will look into. I would be surprised if it were exactly like that. It would not be good enough and it is not acceptable. There are plenty of schemes to deal with it and to accommodate those people properly. If it has been going on for 30 years, there is obviously a lot of history of which I am unaware and which the Deputy has probably not shared with the committee meeting. We will check this out. There is a difficulty in some cases with local authorities assisting families or people on unofficial sites, but in many cases they find a way to do so and step in, even when it is unofficial, to try to make the place safe and bring it up to a liveable standard, even though it is not permanent accommodation. I have visited unofficial sites where work has been done. It is not just because it is unofficial, but I am sure we will get to the bottom of the story.

I have visited Spring Lane and I have met most of the families there. I spent a few hours there with the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton. We had quite a good engagement with all the families living there. I believe it is a site on which we can make progress. The site has a lot of history over a long number of years, and there is a combination of reasons that activity has not happened in the way it should. It is a case of getting all sides together around the table to make some decisions. Some realities also have to be faced. I spoke to families that day and we had a genuine conversation. While they might like to have all of their family members living on that one site, they recognise it might not be possible. We had this chat and discussion with them. It is about bringing this to a resolution and making progress. From what I can see, there is great potential to address the issue in Spring Lane, but it has gone on long enough. We met some of the council officials that day and my officials have visited Cork since. The Department of Justice and Equality is very keen to work with us on this, as are other Departments. I am determined we will find solutions for the specific site and all of the families living there. It will need greater co-operation from all sides and greater engagement. There have been many attempts to have this engagement but, for whatever reason, it has not happened satisfactorily. I am determined to take a personal interest in it and use it as a test case so that we can change this, and rightly so. I will not go into the whole history of the site here today, but it does have a lot of history and people have to take responsibility for this also. We will deal with this also.

The Deputy is right to say the budget for Traveller-specific accommodation was slashed. No one is denying this. Social housing capital across the board was slashed. This is why we have difficulties. I have been trying to say this for a long time. I wish we had a magic wand to put the money back earlier. We did not have the money, but as soon as the money came back, we tried to pump it into social housing through all the various schemes, including Traveller-specific accommodation. It is the only scheme of its nature with ring-fenced money. The budget needs to be increased and we will do this. Many of the other social housing provisions and budgets also provide accommodation for members of the Traveller community. We want to have more in the specific area of Traveller accommodation and we are doing this. No one is denying that the money was hit hard. This is factual. This was the case across every Department for a long number of years because there was no money. This is the bottom line. Thankfully, we are back in a situation now where people are working very hard and contributing taxes, so taxes are back up and we can spend the money wisely. Now that we have this increased money, it is important that we spend it wisely and that we get it spent and get results. This is why we have these reviews. This is what we are trying to do. That is what this conversation is trying to focus on.

The Deputy asked me to comment on what the recommendations should be. I am not going there because that defeats the purpose of setting up an expert group. I hope it comes back with solutions we can use and recommend. I welcome the support expressed here and ask people to do this if the report comes back with recommendations. The National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee, NTACC, is the advisory group to me, or whoever has responsibility at the time. I work with it and listen to it. When it asked for this expert group, I agreed immediately. We will make a quick decision on this. It is not something on which we will delay.

With regard to Storm Ophelia and the damage it and other storms did to accommodation, we have asked local authorities to leave resources for specific accommodation needs that have been damaged and to let us know about it so we can make money available. There has been a review of the loan and grant scheme for the purchase of caravans. That was completed in the autumn. I signed off on it this week, and it will be available to committee members to look at once it goes to the NTACC today. It has to get first view of it. It includes recommendations on the scheme. If we can make changes here and have a standard model for how the scheme operates throughout the country, it could be very successful. It has worked very well in some areas and very badly in others. It should be able to provide a solution for people who have substandard caravans. It is a way of being able to get a grant or loan towards purchasing a new or second-hand caravan. We will work on this. Again, this is something people pay for themselves. We just operate a loan or grant scheme and we are happy to do so. I would like to see it working in a much better way. It is a good report, which the committee will get, and it might be something the members might want to discuss at the next committee meeting. We could not get it signed off in time for today.