Mr. Martin Collins:

I will be brief because I need to be somewhere by 2 p.m. - my apologies for that. I will make three quick points in respect of Spring Lane and the shocking images and findings of the report of the Office of the Ombudsman for Children. I wish to cast the minds of people back. We were here before in October 2015 with the terrible tragedy in Carrickmines, where ten members of our community lost their lives. I remember in the aftermath of that terrible tragedy politicians and others came out with rhetoric to the effect that it represented a line in the sand and a watershed moment in terms of relations between Travellers and settled people and accommodation provision. Of course, within a week, as my colleagues and others have said, we went from lip service to baubles. We have been here before with the terrible tragedy in Carrickmines and we did not see any change or any significant change coming about as a result of that terrible tragedy. Going back to a point made earlier on, I maintain that the State was complicit in that tragedy because families were left in squalor and deprivation with no services, facilities or water hoses, etc. That is why I maintain the State was complicit in that terrible tragedy.

After that terrible tragedy the Department of Health and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage embarked on a programme of giving some Travellers on sites a carbon monoxide alarm, a fire alarm and a little hose or a fire blanket here or there. They were giving these gadgets to people on sites that were structurally unsafe to live in. The sites needed to be demolished and reconstructed, but that did not happen. We got little gadgets to put in the trailers. It was absurd and beyond ridiculous.

The last point is not only relevant for Spring Lane but I will use the site as an example. I will ask a question about the chief executive of Cork City Council. Was that person ever at the Spring Lane site? We have 30-odd chief executives throughout the country. How many of them have been on sites to look at the conditions that people have to endure on a daily basis? I suspect the answer is few, if any, have actually been on a site. As a result, they are completely distant and desensitised. They are living in ivory towers. What about the staff in the accommodation units? Few of them go on to sites to meet Travellers. Travellers have to go into their buildings to make the case for accommodation. These people need to get out of their ivory towers, come on to sites and see the reality.