Mr. Michael Walsh:

I thank the committee for the invitation. I am joined by Mr. Seamus Hanrahan, who is the senior architect with Limerick City and County Council. We share many of the concerns expressed here. We are caught in the middle of the storm in many respects, so we welcome the review the Housing Agency has completed and, equally, the review of the Act and the expert panel that has been put in place. I hope that will be in the next short while. We do broadly share the view that significant change is needed.

It is a matter of record that the drawdown of funding, if we want to measure it in the context of performance over recent years, has not been what it could have been. Ironically, if it is to be fairly expressed, looking at the Housing Agency report, in the earlier years in the first two TAP programmes, the targets were met 70% or 80% in the generality. It may not have been entirely in respect of the type but the funding drawdowns and otherwise were reasonably successful. What has happened in the past seven or eight years post recession is that the budgets have plummeted at one level and at the other level, ironically, the drawdown has plummeted as well in the context of those budgets. There is a message in that.

The reason for that is always multifaceted. The simple reality is that the local authority system took a severe pruning post-recession, the housing area in particular. The pressures in that broad area, both in Traveller and standard accommodation, are significant. We are trying to manage all our services with 20% less staff and with significantly reduced normalised budgets. Traveller-specific budgets have been reduced as well. All of those elements in a sense are contributing to that.

I will pick up on the budget scenario in a minute. Some elements are contentious. There are definitely issues. Our colleagues here, Mr. Collins, Ms Maughan and Ms Kelly, sit on the National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee, NTACC, as well.

We have met a lot of the local Traveller accommodation consultative committees and it is very obvious that our partnership is pretty good in those spaces. We probably agree on this. The thing delivers reasonably well. Where it is not happening in those spaces, it does not work that well. That is the simple reality.

In many respects the problem is reflected here. Members will have seen it in the video. Local elected representatives merely reflect the chasm between the settled community and their acceptance of Traveller accommodation. We are sitting in the middle of that storm and we find that really difficult to resolve in the majority of cases. For example, Mr. Collins said that the chief executives should do more with their powers, but it is even more complicated than that, as was outlined. Deputy Ó Cuív averted to the difficulty whereby there is decision-making power on one side of the issue but not where the land issue is concerned. It is not quite as simple as a need for the chief executives to do more.

We really want a situation where Traveller accommodation is delivered in a relatively normal fashion as a part of standard procedure, not by imposition. Imposition automatically hardens reservations or poisons relations with the other side. The simple reality is that chief executives, myself included, are very slow to resort to that, because it is a space from which there is no coming back. We need to get to a point where we can start delivering appropriate Traveller accommodation on the basis of acquiescence and understanding from the respective communities.

There are a few issues which have to be addressed. I would not object to more evidence-based research here because we have to change the things that are informing the view of the settled community and creating the resistance. We also have to change the dialogue. Some of these issues are merely perception in many instances. However, we have to do something societally to change those perceptions. The maintenance of the existing sides is impinging on people's perception of the situation of the Traveller community. Wherever the fault lies, if we are to use that word, the settled community perceives that Traveller-specific accommodation has a significant impact on them. This must be addressed somehow.

There is another element which I think is significant. Travellers have either aggregated into urban areas or they have been forced to. Their natural cultural relationship with horsemanship, if I could use that language, is a locus of conflict, because there are two competing tendencies here. One is Travellers' wish to sustain solely residential settled occupation, and the other is activity around horses. That is an inherent part of their culture. Somehow we have to talk about that issue and create a solution that satisfies both parties. From my perspective, that dialogue is not really happening at the moment.

At the moment, the system is pushing solutions that frankly do not meet the needs of the Traveller community. We must somehow change this system so that it does meet these needs, and we must do so in a way that creates genuine understanding. To be fair, that is happening in some areas, but in other areas the chasm is just too great. That is simply reflected across the political system. We must create another dialogue. I see this review, the review of the Act and the expert panel as an opportunity to commence that dialogue and to try to create the necessary fundamental change.

There are other practical issues here. The complexity of funding and approval systems have a bearing on this. The Traveller community perceives local authorities to have a budget. We do not have a budget. The Oireachtas votes a budget annually and we make an application for an element of that budget. For example, in the current year we will be informed what the allocation to the individual local authorities will be. That allocation is from a Vote of very limited funding. Last year I had a budget of €500,000, of which only €38,000 was drawn down by the end of the year. There was €500,000 to spend, but there was a period between the allocation of funding and the projects we had to do. I would not argue that we pursued these goals as quickly as we could have. However, local authorities must go through processes related to procurement, getting contractors on site and consultation with the Traveller community before a project can be executed. I accept that, in some respects, those are excuses. If I had one appeal it would be to change the process to one of multi-annual funding or some other structure. In the earlier meeting, it was noted that in previous years of the Traveller accommodation programme, TAP, the spend came at the end of the year. That reflects the need for planned progression of spend. The Traveller accommodation programme involves a process of identifying sites and moving forward with them. The reality is that it takes two or three years and the spend only comes at the end of the TAP. The answer to that is to make the budgets multi-annual and allow them to function as a continuum.

I wish to make a couple of other points. I am not certain that the Traveller representatives would agree with this, but from my point of view, having some sort of standardised template for the nature of the different types of accommodation to be provided would help to streamline the process. We need not try to reinvent the wheel. I am not saying there would not be architectural involvement in changes of layout etc. I refer to the type of basic specifications that we are moving towards in standard social housing. It does not mean that the houses will look the same. However, there will be basic specifications for the facilities to be provided. If those were agreed at national level, it would certainly help to streamline our activities.

In response to a point raised by Deputy Ó Cuív, I would not object to another approach that would go through the normal planning processes. The Part VIII process is a difficulty here. The committee should have no illusions about that. I refer to the approved housing bodies AHBs. I am conscious of CENA and the difficulties it has had in some places, but I would welcome more of that. It facilitates another entity, ideally on private lands, making an application through the normal planning processes, with An Bord Pleanála having the final say. We would welcome that.

Moreover, the overall budgets need to increase significantly. There is no point in saying otherwise. The Traveller community's overall housing need, demand and population is increasing, and we have to address that collectively. I make that point in the context of the reduced budgets in recent times. This is hard to explain, but sometimes it is easier to deliver a €3 million scheme than a €300,000 scheme. The €3 million scheme gets the resources and full application. I will cite a specific example, and I know there are many similar cases. I have one halting site for which I need between €2 million and €3 million. It is very difficult for anybody at Department level to sign off on expenditure of €3 million in any one year, when the national budget was between €6 million and €8 million a year or two ago and is now €9 million. That quantum of money must be increased.

We are not talking about large-scale solutions but we need to get back to the early parts of the Traveller accommodation programme, TAP, programmes where there was €80,000 or €90,000 per unit on average. That is the reality if one wants to provide proper solutions and the quality of accommodation the community requires. That scale of intervention is needed. It is not doable for €20,000 per unit. In today's terms, €100,000 per unit is required to deliver Traveller-specific accommodation. We need to think in those terms and get back to that budgetary place. I thank the Chair.