Mr. Tony Smithers:

I am the senior executive officer with responsibility for Traveller-specific accommodation throughout Dublin City. I am accompanied today by my colleagues Ms Denise Doyle, head of the Traveller accommodation unit, and Ms Sorcha Farrell, senior social worker.

On behalf of Dublin City Council, I thank the Joint Committee on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community for extending an invitation to attend this meeting. We welcome the opportunity to participate in the discussions. Dublin City Council welcomes the review of the recommendations in the final report. We recognise that Traveller accommodation is a priority and are committed to providing good quality, sustainable and culturally appropriate accommodation.

Local authorities are governed by the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 and have general responsibility for the provision of housing for adults and families who cannot afford to provide it for themselves. Traveller-specific accommodation is included in this provision and expected delivery plans are outlined in our Traveller accommodation programmes. Dublin City Council is in the process of drafting its new Traveller accommodation programme, which will come into effect in December and which will cover the period 2025 to 2029.

The council is working in partnership with approved housing bodies, the HSE, Tusla, community representative groups and other key stakeholders to provide assistance to Traveller families in need of housing and additional supports. Our aim is to support Traveller families in obtaining accommodation that suits their needs. Our housing department includes a dedicated Traveller accommodation unit that specifically deals with Traveller families that live in existing culturally appropriate halting sites and group housing schemes, along with Traveller families seeking accommodation across 14 sites throughout Dublin City. Additional support is provided by a team of five social workers, including one senior social worker, dedicated to working with members of the Traveller community. Importantly, all current staff have completed cultural awareness and anti-racism training through Pavee Point. This training has been extended to all council staff via our human resources department in conjunction with Pavee Point. We see this as an important step in progressing our internal training system for all staff throughout the organisation dealing with the Traveller community and other ethnic minorities.

Since the commencement of our current Traveller accommodation programme in 2019, Dublin City Council’s Traveller accommodation unit has committed to improving service delivery across all our Traveller-specific group housing schemes, halting sites and unauthorised sites. We take a collaborative approach and engage with key stakeholders to provide high quality, fully serviced, sustainable and culturally appropriate homes. As noted in previous presentations to this committee, access to the private rental market is difficult for all at present. The lack of availability of larger housing units impacts on Traveller families in particular. There is some evidence of failed tenancies that have led to homelessness.

Dublin City Council uses all measures available to assist families seeking private rented accommodation which includes the provision of homeless housing assistance payment, HAP, place-finder support and the use of the differential rent hardship clause, where appropriate. More recently the tenant in situ scheme and the extension of the choice-based letting scheme online has been successfully used to prevent homelessness. Dublin City Council’s Traveller accommodation staff work hard to maintain prompt service delivery and estate management processes across all our sites. There have, however, been several incidents where staff welfare and safety on site has been compromised. This has also been the case with contractors who have had to withdraw their services from some sites. Incidents such as these severely hamper progress on our sites. It is to the detriment of vulnerable tenants when sites cannot be adequately maintained because of threats to staff and contractors.

Dublin City Council has taken steps to remedy these issues, including engaging with the Traveller Mediation Service, and it continues to endeavour to deliver the required services to all of our sites.

Since 2021, Dublin City Council has housed 44 Traveller families from our housing list who had a priority. The Traveller accommodation unit, TAU, has spent in excess of €24.2 million through its revenue budget on maintenance and repair of our sites, along with providing a waste removal service and more than €12.9 million on our capital works programme. In 2024, the TAU has a revenue budget of €6.7 million and a capital budget of €7.9 million.

Dublin City Council welcomed the introduction of the national caravan loan scheme in 2021. The scheme aims to provide loans to the Traveller community to purchase mobile homes as their primary place of residence. Some 18 loans were successfully issued in 2022 by Dublin City Council to a total value of €720,000. Funding for eight loans was granted to the council in 2023, with funding for an additional two loans was made available in December 2023. All have now been allocated to families on our waiting list. The total value of these loans amounts to €400,000. While Dublin City Council is very happy to participate in this scheme, it is our view that the maximum loan amount of €40,000 is not sufficient to provide the type of mobile home required for larger families. We would be happy to discuss this in more detail.

Dublin City Council takes a multi-agency approach to dealing with the wider issues affecting the Traveller community. This includes working with Cena on the design and construction of culturally appropriate homes; with the Traveller Mediation Service with regard to conflict resolution on sites; with the gardaí to help forge better relationships with communities; and with Exchange House, Traveller primary health care, the HSE and Tusla on the provision of childcare and community support facilities.

The following works give an insight into our work programme in terms of improvements to accommodation standards: the TAU in Dublin City Council completed a maintenance audit across all of our sites in 2023, and following that we implemented a site-by-site maintenance and repair plan to address these issues, which commenced in January 2024. We undertook and completed a retrofit programme in Cara Park. Of the 28 houses completed, one house received an A3 rating while the remaining 27 obtained a B1 rating. An extended retrofit programme is planned for 2024. That has been agreed and the remaining 95 units of group housing will receive a retrofit in 2024 by Dublin City Council. That will ensure all of our remaining Traveller-specific housing stock receives a full energy upgrade. These works have contributed to resolving and reducing any outstanding maintenance issues on site, which will also reduce costs going forward. We are implementing a new waste management plan in 2024 across all of our Traveller-specific sites. We would be happy to provide more information on this to the committee.

Dublin City Council's TAU is also committed to assisting Traveller families to access support services through our social work team, Tusla and the HSE. This support has included help in accessing mental health services and occupational therapists where families have disability or mobility issues that require adaptations to their accommodation. In the context of the caravan loan scheme, we would like to discuss the adaptation of caravans to assist with mobility for those who want to live in culturally appropriate homes. That is a discussion we would like to have here as well today.

The social work team provides a holistic, specialist support service to Traveller individuals and families through responsive, preventative and advocacy work. Social workers work collaboratively with Traveller representatives, Traveller representative organisations, and statutory and non-statutory agencies on a continuous basis, not only in an effort to signpost and support individual families and to resolve personal and housing-related difficulties, but also to address and progress wider issues affecting the Traveller community.

Social workers also assess and make Traveller priority recommendations with regard to the housing needs of families and advocate for Travellers on housing vacancies. The senior social worker on the social work team for Travellers is responsible for co-ordinating and completing the returns for the annual estimate of Traveller families and their accommodation position on behalf of Dublin City Council. In 2023, a total of 854 families were identified in the Dublin City Council area on the date of the count. Although currently the figure for homeless Traveller families and individuals cannot be included in the returns to the Department, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, identified a total of 52 households identifying as Traveller families and accessing emergency accommodation in Dublin city on the date of the count.

As a result of the review of the role of local authority social workers assisting Travellers with accommodation needs, which was commissioned by the Housing Agency in 2020, Traveller representatives and local authority social workers and managers were consulted, a vision was developed, and the LGMA is currently conducting a review of local authority social work. The Traveller accommodation unit has contacted our human resources department to request a re-establishment of the previous apprenticeship programme which was specifically aimed at members of the Traveller community to assist them in gaining employment.

The local Traveller accommodation consultative committee, LTACC, is also looking at ways we might support members of the Traveller community to start their own business in the circular economy in an effort to assist with, and encourage, accessibility to employment and self-employment.

The TAU hopes to continue to foster and develop new and existing relationships in an open and transparent manner with all members of the Traveller community, its community representatives, local government representatives, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and our neighbouring local authorities. Dublin City Council fully supports a definition of culturally appropriate accommodation to provide clarity for all stakeholders involved. We hope to continue to work collaboratively to achieve not only a greater understanding of the Traveller community but to deliver culturally appropriate accommodation in an urban setting.

Since I took over the TAU in Dublin City Council just over a year ago, we have restructured our unit. We now have an administration team that deals with budgets, caravan loans, rents and invoices, with a huge focus on customer service. We have a technical team that looks after the day-to-day management of short- and long-term maintenance, including fire safety. We have a capital projects team that will oversee the Traveller accommodation programme, TAC, project from 2019 to 2024, in addition to the future TAC project. We have a caretaking team for the day-to-day running of our sites, including the waste management plan, and an estates management team that implements Dublin City Council's antisocial policy and procedures. Approximately 27 staff in total are assigned to our unit, including clerical workers, architects, quantity surveyors and planners, who work closely with us on planning future works and sites in the area.

In 2023, our LTACC met six times, under the leadership of Mr. Jack Keyes, who is the chair. We had several other meetings on the review of the TAC project, which were overseen by Dr. Seán Ó'Riordáin. We have already met once this year, in January 2024. Our next meeting will be in March of this year.

On the emergency caravan grant, we provided assistance with nine emergency caravans in 2023. That comes under the departmental criteria of flood, fire and storm. We also provided three medical caravans, specifically built for the needs of two children and one older person. We are in the process of adapting and building another mobile caravan for another child's needs, which will be culturally appropriate as the family wish to live in a culturally appropriate setting. I will discuss that further under caravan loans.

We recently had a very positive meeting with Clúid regarding the redevelopment of Labre Park, on which I will give updates. It is a Clúid application but DCC is supporting it. We are to meet the Department to seek clarification on co-ordinating the phase 2 works and the overall redevelopment to redesign the plan to allow for extra Traveller-specific accommodation for the families at Labre Park. I will discuss that further later. I know members will come back to me with a couple of queries on that, especially regarding the works on flooding and some contaminated areas that has held this up. We are trying to resolve those issues. We are on the cusp of something. We are nearly there in getting this over the line once and for all for the residents of Labre Park. I will mention the Ballyfermot Traveller action project, BTAP, especially Shay and Róisín, which is very supportive of DCC on the ground at Labre Park. Without their help, we would not get those works completed.

I will let the head of the section come in on the waste management plan. I again thank the Chair for the invitation.