Mr. Bernard Joyce:

I can elaborate on that point in conjunction with Ms Murtagh, our national policy officer. I will pass over to Ms Murtagh on the pilot caravan loan question as she is dealing directly with it.

On the question about water services, many of the families living in poor accommodation that we spoke about probably share basic facilities, such as water. In some cases, it might not even be hot water they are sharing, but the basic water supply. The report from the Ombudsman for Children's Office commented on that point. It is also an issue in other parts of the country, and we are highlighting that. While there have been reports on this issue, we know from direct contact with our members that many families are living without these basic facilities and many are also sharing facilities.

The Deputy asked what steps are being taken to remedy this problem. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was talk of mitigating its spread. We described it as a humanitarian crisis because nobody knew what was in store for us at the time or what the fallout or implications would be. Looking at other European countries and other countries abroad, it became evident that we were dealing with a crisis. We then had a race against time to show that many Traveller families did not have a water supply, did not have water at home and were unable to comply with the guidelines issued by the Department of Health. That resulted in a push by the Department and the Minister at the time and a circular was issued to all local authorities directing them to address and mitigate the Covid-19 crisis. It had a positive impact because those steps led to an improvement in some of the conditions. The steps taken, however, were basic. The community was left vulnerable to catching Covid-19 and also serious illness and death. We were disproportionately impacted by the virus, and the report stated this, in respect of the number of people infected by Covid-19-----