Ms AnnMarie Farrelly:

I will say a couple of things about good estate management and making sure there is attention to what is happening on various sites and locations. It is persistence and responsibility. I think local authorities have proved themselves to be persistent. We are the State agency that is going on sites, and our responsibility and the responsibility of tenants are crucial.

That is what make good places to live; it is no different than anywhere else.

In terms of upgrades and dealing with those sites that need urgent and immediate improvement, if we could speed up the agreement process and if Travellers were in a position to understand what is possible quickly, that would help. For example, modular homes might be a solution. We could agree a template for what we could do with procurement and delivery. That is feasible in 18 months but we find it takes years until we reach the stage where we have agreement on what can be done. I will be honest and probably a bit controversial. I have never found money to be the biggest issue in this regard. We can find the financial resources if we get to the stage where we all work to an agreed plan and get it implemented because there is definitely will on every side. That persistence needs to apply to all State agencies. It is important that everybody understands the conditions, as the Chair mentioned, and that we can all work together. The benefit of this committee is that it will help to arrive at the point where everybody understands the problem and works towards fixing it.