Mr. Conn Murray:

The drawdown issues and the figures have been mentioned. I will reflect on the position in Limerick. While almost 90% of the money has been allocated, just a small amount has been drawn down, primarily because we were very late in starting the programmes for the year as a consequence of the level of negotiations required at local level with the community, the elected bodies and, more importantly, directly the community we are trying to serve. I would like to put the issue in context. This experience is right across the country in dealing with the Traveller community. In the specific case of Limerick we have had to go through the courts to have people removed from sites. We have had to use emergency planning powers to begin to construct housing accommodation on site. That required case management. I had to sit down with representatives of An Garda Síochána, the HSE, the ESB, the Department of Education and Skills and Tusla to look at individual families. In some cases, the scale of the problem is challenging. Therefore, consideration has to be given to those who best require protection and support. Therefore, the issue must be tackled on a family by family basis and that is the approach we have taken. It is slow, but it is important.