Ms Bridget Kelly:

Angela has first hand experience of living in substandard and dangerous conditions, with rat infestation, contaminated water and no or poor sanitation facilities. Overcrowding and unsafe living conditions are the reality for many Travellers living throughout the country, as well as the isolation they experience by being placed on the outside of towns, often in completely unhealthy environments, such as the dump at Carrowbrowne or near a crumbling cliff in Spring Lane. Spring Lane in Cork is home to 31 families and 12 single adults. The site is seriously overcrowded with very poor sanitation facilities. The living nightmare of sites such as this is having a detrimental impact on Traveller health and well-being and on the right of their children to thrive as equals.

There has been a gross failure of delivery of Traveller accommodation, with no sanctions imposed on local authorities for not meeting their own targets. Even when plans are agreed and funding is available, there are long and unreasonable delays in building getting started, as can be seen with the current situation with Labre Park in Ballyfermot. The high number of families living without permanent accommodation or in inadequate accommodation has particular consequences for Traveller women and children. Women spend more time in the home and are the primary carers so they bear the brunt of having to cope with conditions such as poor or no sanitation, no running water, no refuse collection and especially no safe play areas for the children. Accommodation is one of the key determinants of health, and the appropriate type and standard of Traveller accommodation impacts greatly on life expectancy. According to the all-Ireland Traveller health study, almost one in three households living in temporary accommodation has no sewerage facilities and one in five has no piped water source. A review of fire safety in Traveller accommodation in September 2016 found that 76% did not have a working smoke alarm, 72% did not have a working carbon monoxide alarm and the condition of electrical installations was an issue in 78% of the sites.

According to 2016 Government statistics, 536 families are now living in unofficial, unrecognised and unserviced accommodation and 1,876 families are sharing housing, sharing bays or living on unauthorised or basic service halting sites. Young Travellers are living in dangerous, substandard and inadequate accommodation where there is serious overcrowding. Unauthorised sites are where Travellers are forced to live on the roadside or in other poor environments. We could substitute the word "sharing" for Travellers living in chronic overcrowding. The term "basic service bays" refers to sites that are often rat infested and have poor facilities. These Travellers are in effect homeless but they are not reflected in the Government's statistics on homelessness. Their number was three times higher in 2016 compared with the 2011 census. We have had almost 20 years of failed accommodation programmes.