Ms RoseMarie Maughan:

On behalf of the Irish Traveller Movement and ITM members, we welcome the opportunity to present our perspective on the Traveller accommodation crisis. We are here to bring solutions that have come from our community, and it is unfortunate that we have run out of time within this session due to the overrun in the first session. We are hopeful that we will get the time to outline our solutions in the discussion period.

We welcome the report commissioned by the Minister of State, Deputy English, into funding for Traveller-specific accommodation and the implementation of Traveller accommodation programmes. We also welcome his decision on the advice of the NTACC to review the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act. However, we are mindful that this Act was reviewed in 2004 and today we are bringing the same recommendations to the committee.

Despite the requirements within the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 to address the cultural needs of our community, we have experienced long-term insufficient accommodation provision within the State. As already mentioned, in May 2016, the European Committee of Social Rights found that Ireland was in breach of its obligations regarding provision of accommodation, living conditions and eviction rights by not having the safeguards that should be in place for evictions. In the resolution adopted in October 2016, the committee concluded that Ireland violated Article 16 of the charter under five grounds.

To date no directive or amendment to policy or practice has been put in place by the State to redress those violations. That needs to be addressed by the expert panel as a matter of urgency.

The European Committee of Social Rights also found there was a not insubstantial shortfall of transient accommodation across the country, and of the 1,000 transient bays identified as needed in the 1995 task force report, only 54 are in existence nationwide and are not functioning as proper well-managed transient sites. Hearing the comment and commitment of the Minister of State, Deputy English, to the delivery of transient accommodation is most welcome to the Irish Traveller Movement and its members.

In the 20 years since the Act came into effect, the delivery expected under the overseeing monitoring body, the National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee, NTACC, governed by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, has not happened. In fact, NTACC has overseen consistent underdelivery and underspending. Nothing happens, except that the Travelling community continues to live in Third World conditions. This has not been addressed. We are hoping for charge during the upcoming review of the Act.

Figures are not available to us for 2016 and 2017, but I want to outline some of the trends since the development of the Traveller accommodation programmes which came into place in the year 2000. Although I will focus on the statistics, it is important to note that the community is suffering and many Travellers are living in Third World conditions, with their cultural needs not being recognised and catered for. This must change. My colleagues will focus further on that.

It is welcome that we can broadcast our video because figures paint a picture but seeing people living under those conditions, which they do day in, day out, and seeing little children struggle with them gives the committee members a flavour of the reality that Travellers are facing. During that period the number of Traveller families counted by the State as in need of accommodation has more than doubled. However, the number of Traveller families living on unauthorised halting sites has halved. That looks promising if it were not for the fact that the number of people sharing overcrowded housing rose from approximately 1,000 people in the year 2000 to approximately 4,724 in 2016.

Since the year 2002, there has been an almost threefold increase in the number of Traveller families sharing housing. There has been almost a 16-fold increase in the number of families who are now living in private rented accommodation, which is not permanent secure accommodation. That cannot be deemed as meeting the target in the Traveller accommodation legislation. It is neither permanent nor culturally appropriate accommodation. The number of families in specific group housing schemes has only doubled.

The recent review report found that the option of living in private rented accommodation is "extremely difficult for Traveller families to access", yet we know that some local authorities use private rented housing as the alternative to staying on a waiting list for Travellers wanting culturally appropriate specific homes. These local authorities use the option of private rented accommodation as a means of reaching their targets, which as I have said is not the same as providing permanent, safe, secure and culturally appropriate accommodation for Travellers. The local authorities are not meeting their targets.

There has been a critical rise of homelessness, with 517 Travellers affected, which is 11 times higher than the rise experienced by the general population in the past five years. Homelessness is three times higher for Travellers compared with the doubling of homelessness for the majority population.

The figures clearly show that in the 16 year period up to 2015, the policy adopted set low targets for developing Traveller-specific accommodation, such as halting sites, group housing and transient sites, whereas high targets were set and have been overdelivered on standard housing. There has been a lack of adequate planning for population growth and inaction on overcrowding and homelessness. We have all heard stories and there have been case studies of the impact of overcrowding on the health and safety of families. No child deserves to live in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. We need to identify overcrowding as a problem to be addressed in the planning process throughout the country.

There is no reference to the delivery of transient accommodation to facilitate nomadism. Overall there has been underdelivery of targets for Traveller accommodation by local authorities coupled with underspending of the allocated budgets.

I will discuss in detail areas of consistent underdelivery, use of temporary accommodation and lack of Traveller-specific provision, which is widespread. Some 963 families, comprising approximately 4,700 men, women and children are sharing or living in overcrowded accommodation. The highest recorded numbers in 2016 were in the county council areas of Carlow, Kerry, Limerick, Meath and Wexford, and in Cork City Council. In the review report, local authorities agreed overcrowding was an issue leading to “health and safety concerns” and all stakeholder groups agreed “that the future assessment of need for Traveller families was unfit for purpose".

Twenty-six out of a total of 31 local authorities responded to the survey under the review that we are discussing today, and only 22 had all the data needed to answer all the questions in the survey. This could suggest a level of disregard in some local authorities. Since the Act came into force, only 68% of units were provided and €55 million from the allocated budgets went unspent. We have all heard of the level of underspending and the lack of sanctions for this failure. The local authorities that continue to fail in spending the allocation in their budgets year after year are not directed to address this failure. The failure to spend the money allocated in the budget to address Traveller accommodation must be a priority area to be addressed. We welcome the recommendation of imposing sanctions on local authorities that continue to underspend their budget allocation.

In the past two decades, increasingly regressive eviction legislation has been introduced, whereby speedier and harsher forced evictions are permitted against Travellers or transient families living by the roadside. These eviction laws have been passed and used even though the Government has failed in the past 20 years to implement Traveller accommodation programmes to provide permanent and transient halting sites and other accommodation to Travellers, thereby criminalising and eroding the nomadism which is an important element of the cultural identity of Travellers. That element of Traveller culture needs to be recognised and prioritised as there is no well-managed and maintained transient accommodation to be used for that purpose.

I have some suggested solutions, but to facilitate the showing of the video, I am willing to share them as part of the discussion.