Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentations. The committee members fully understand the witnesses frustrations that they are back here again talking about the same stuff that they were talking to the committee about in the Dáil Committee on Housing and Homelessness two years ago and all the previous occasions. The committee also understands, and maybe "suspicion" is not the right word, that the witnesses may want to welcome the review but that there is a nervousness that it is another review and it may not resolve the issues. The reason this committee has decided to do this piece of work is because it wants to try to make sure that this time things genuinely change. A number of the members of the committee have been talking and we are very keen that this will not be a one-off meeting but that the committee will meet in this format on a number of occasions throughout the piece of work of the expert group and the Government's follow up so that we can support and, as Senator Kelleher said, push it along at a faster speed.

My question to the Traveller advocacy organisations relates to the expert group. Obviously there is long list of things that the witnesses would like to see changed, but if there was something they really wanted to prioritise in terms of a change that would come out of that expert group or the Government's actions afterwards, what would they like that to be? The committee members could to try to focus on one or two key issues. I appreciate that all the issues Mr. Collins raised are important but it would help for the committee to have a sense of his priorities in all that.

Mr. Walsh knows me well. I am a very strong advocate of the local authorities and I defend the local authorities very strongly, often when they are coming in for unfair criticism. This is one area where I am a strong critic. It is not because I want to beat up on local government. It is because the record is really poor. I understand the delays with approval, tendering and procurement but last year, for example, the Department had to come back to the Oireachtas looking for an extra €100 million because, by and large, local authorities were exceeding their general needs social housing targets yet we see that last year, they had the biggest underspend in Traveller accommodation budgets for quite some time.

Mr. Walsh mentioned his own local authority and it is a case in point. I have the figures for the last three years here. In 2014 there was a budget allocated of €413,000, none of it was spent. The following year there was a budget of €263,000, but only 5% of that was spent. Then last year only 4% was spent. I am not picking on Waterford but what I do not understand is how, for example, Limerick significantly overspent last year and in the two years previous. Last year, Limerick spent nine times what its allocation was. How is it that some local authorities perform better than others?

I absolutely accept multi-annual funding. That is eminently sensible. Some of the suggestions around template designs are workable solutions but is Mr. Walsh suggesting, and I think he was at the end, that we should move away from Part 8? If Traveller accommodation applications are then put, for example, through the standard process, how can we get over the land issue, the section 183? If standard planning is used for Traveller accommodation, would managers be willing to step in and use their powers or are new ministerial powers needed to ensure the land is provided? How will that circle be squared?