Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 14 December 2023
Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community
Traveller Accommodation: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Brian Dillon:
I would absolutely agree. That is a huge barrier and people will understand that. We made the point in our submission that we are quite convinced that we are doing what we are doing in the right way and one which is sustainable, which is the most important thing as well as it being culturally appropriate and that people own the development. That is critical for us. On barriers, we identified three main points at the end of our paper, I refer to there being no other solution. We can look back at failures of the past. We know this is something we need to try to promote. The barriers are really around expanding the model. Five of the major approved housing bodies are totally committed to taking this model and seconding Travellers into what they are doing. We can expand that and multiply by ten what we are doing very quickly. However, Ms Casey has identified a very important point there. There was a key recommendation in the expert review group on Traveller accommodation 2019 which named Cena and other approved housing bodies and identified that they were not delivering Traveller accommodation and they admitted that and knew that. However, the recommendation was very specific in terms of saying the Cena model needs to be taken to these agencies and needs to be developed. That is a very specific recommendation. For two years, we have had a commitment in principle from the Government for funds to go through on this. We are working with the other approved housing bodies but we still have not had a commitment on the support to actually do that and to resource that.
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