Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will go further than Deputy O'Callaghan on the spending because this is something I have been tracking very carefully for quite a number of years. During Covid-19, for the first time, the capital allocation was spent in full. Initially, this was on Covid measures. In many cases, then, it was spent on-site improvements. Again, these are very welcome but the number of new Traveller-specific accommodation units or developments that have come on stream in recent years is paltry and nowhere near the level required to meet demand. I also take issue with the Minister of State's contention that the increase in capital is significant. I accept it has been increased every year, but it is very low and way off the €40 million annually it used to be back in 2008.

The real problem is that the Minister of State's response to our amendments refers to section 45(3)(g). This provision is failing. Not only is it failing with respect to the obligation to prepare housing developments, but the Traveller accommodation programmes are themselves failing. I am in a local authority area that has a relatively decent track record in terms of the provision and maintenance of its Traveller-specific sites. Mr. Hogan knows that because he was there for many years. In terms of the provision of new accommodation, the Traveller accommodation programme is desperately stalled, bar one development we are hoping will go on site later this year. Equally, this matter is not just about the Traveller-specific accommodation. There are also Travellers who wish to live in what we often call mainstream housing estates. They would still like aspects of the planning of those estates to meet their specific cultural needs as Travellers. Not all Travellers necessarily want to live in Traveller sites exclusively. Of course, if there were to be a greater choice, that would be even better.

A more fundamental problem also exists here. When we talk about the national planning policy statements, the Government says there is not a consistency of approach across local authorities. It states it must be ensured that local authorities are abiding by central government policy and, therefore, there are going to have to be national planning policy statements and we are given a list of what they are. I refer to an area that is probably the greatest example of a lack of consistency and a lack of willingness on the part of many of our local authorities to provide good quality and culturally appropriate accommodation for Travellers with appropriate planning built in. It would not be possible to find a better example of our local government system not following what the central government says its policy, and associated funding, is supposed to. What better area to have a national planning policy statement in than this one? In fact, more than any other issue we have discussed, bar disability, this is the area where there should be such a provision. I say this because unless we start to take more determined action from a central government level to ensure local authorities meet the needs of that section of our community, along with people with disabilities, whose housing needs are most often egregiously unmet, I think we will continue to have a problem.

It may be that our suggested wording may not be the best possible. I am quite willing to concede this point to the Minister of State, particularly after six hours of debating these sections of the Bill. What I do not think he could dispute, though, is that if there is a desire to achieve consistency, especially in planning and using the planning system to meet the needs of Travellers, a national planning policy statement is the way to go. All three amendments are broadly speaking to the same issue. Until the Government, through the planning system, either via these amendments and-or the recommendations of the expert group on Traveller accommodation with respect to planning, starts to implement these measures, we will be back in conversions year after year about the fact that the accommodation and urban planning of our housing system for Travellers is still operating in the 19th century. This is where it is, and this is a shame on all of us and this is an opportunity to do something about it.