Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for a very comprehensive report on the workings of NTRIS to date. A question remains to be answered. Funding is going into this strategy and committees and equality groups have been set up, yet the situation has not changed on the coalface. That is the reality of it. It is a question of how we transpose all these reports and groups to the reality on the ground.

Members of the committee visited the Spring Lane halting site in Cork on the basis of the Ombudsman for Children's report. It would be an underestimate to say that it did not have a big impact on all of us. Travellers have been living in those conditions for nearly 30 years. Things are not changing quickly enough. It is a slow process, which causes a lot of distrust in the community of officials, councillors and the powers that be. Travellers are getting visits from people all the time, including Deputies, CEOs, officials and the ombudsman, and things still have not changed.

We visited Labre Park in Ballyfermot on Monday. Travellers there have worked with council officials for 21 years to put a plan in place to upgrade the site. It is not happening. We have to find ways to move these blocks that are there all the time. We also visited St. Margaret's halting site on Monday, which is a better site, but Travellers there got themselves organised and used the leverage of the super depot being built by the council right beside them. They said that if the council was going to put €100 million into that, they wanted a cut of it for a super site in the community estate that they live in. It is just an observation that many things seem to be set up, but their implementation is not happening. We have to get over that. One criticism of NTRIS is that it has a lot of information but the implementation of it is not quick enough.

Some €14.5 million was fully spent on Traveller-specific accommodation. Is there a breakdown of where that Traveller-specific accommodation was? Was it on a site in Galway or Mayo? I received a report about a site in Mayo that has not had proper water or sanitation for the past 21 years. It is a simple thing to get someone to go in to do the job that needs to be done in a way that is not piecemeal. One thing I noticed from the feedback we got from much of the Traveller community is that someone is coming in and fixing a pothole, or a problem with a water connection or something like that, but no one is going in and doing the fundamental groundwork that needs to be done to facilitate everybody receiving proper water, sanitation, etc. The Minister said that he expected the €15.5 million in 2021 to be fully spent. I ask for a breakdown of where that Traveller-specific accommodation funding has been spent.

I welcome the fact that the ethnic identifier system has been set up. That will make a difference.