Mr. John O'Connor:

We welcome this opportunity to discuss the issue of access to housing and accommodation for the Traveller community. As mentioned by Rosemary Hennigan, the Housing Agency publishes the summary of social housing assessments annually. In 2020, there were just over 1,000 households with unmet Traveller-specific accommodation requirements. In addition, there are more Traveller families on the general social housing lists that are not specifically identified.

In regard to the matter of homelessness, as the committee is aware and has been highlighted, there is a significantly higher rate of homelessness among Travellers compared to the settled population. Data provided by Dublin City Council to the Traveller expert group shows there were 504 homeless Travellers in temporary accommodation in Dublin in October 2018. That figure included 100 families with children. This represented approximately 9% of the total number of homeless families in Dublin at that date, even though Travellers make up less than 1% of the population nationally.

The Housing Agency has undertaken quite an amount of research in regard to Traveller accommodation issues and we typically would do at least one piece of research each year in that area. Some of the research work has included the experience of Travellers in the private rental sector, a review of the funding for Traveller-specific accommodation, the implementation of the Traveller accommodation programme in 2017 and why Travellers leave Traveller-specific accommodation. We, and Roslyn Molloy specifically, provided support to the Traveller expert group and that report was issued in 2019.

We provide technical expertise and support to Traveller accommodation projects. Some of the projects we have been involved in include a current project in Monaghan and we supported Kerry County Council and Cork City Council in respect of some of their Traveller-specific projects. We have also worked with the Traveller-led housing association, CENA. We are currently supporting the role of the project development officer with CENA for a three-year period. Basically, we employ someone who we assign to support its work.

I will now move to a couple of the points in our statement that are for particular consideration. First, we suggest that the recommendations in the 2019 Traveller accommodation expert group report are progressed and we welcome the establishment by the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, of a programme board last year to implement those recommendation positions. Second, we welcome the announcement by the Minister of State that a revision is to be made to the social housing assessments to collect more accurate data and to include an ethnic identifier as part of that, as recommended by the expert group. We fully support its introduction. Third, updated guidelines on the planning, design, management and maintenance of Traveller-specific accommodation would aid the work of local authorities and approved housing bodies. We believe these guidelines should be issued as soon as possible. Fourth, we believe the approved housing bodies have a key role to play in the delivery of Traveller-specific accommodation and we would welcome further investigation of what supports could be provided to ensure greater involvement of the sector in this area. A great deal of current social housing delivery is coming through the approved housing bodies and we would like to see more of that being provided for the Traveller community.

The overall aim for our society is the availability of homes for all. To achieve this goal, all sections of society must be included. The Housing Agency made a submission to this committee in February 2021 on key issues affecting the Traveller community and that outlines in more detail some of the points raised in our statement. We are happy to discuss these points and provide more information to the committee, as it sees fit.