Mr. Patrick O'Sullivan:

I thank the Senator. Going back to 2008, we had to look at the global crisis. Obviously, we had a very specific banking and financial crisis in this country. There was a massive drop off in expenditure, across every voted expenditure. The Senator is absolutely right. Traveller accommodation was not immune to that. It dropped steadily from 2009 to 2011, and then it was flat for about four or five years at about €5 million annually. Since 2016, we have been rebuilding and in the past five years there has been a significant increase. We are trying to get back to those levels of full expenditure. In the most recent five years, €100 million spent on Traveller-specific accommodation is not insignificant. That is outside of the expenditure in accommodation for Travellers more broadly. As I mentioned earlier, 79% of all Travellers identified in the annual estimate are housed in standard social housing. That has to be recognised as a huge success on the part of local authorities. The Department supports that very well.

The Senator is right about transient bays.

I have seen where transient sites have, naturally, over time, become more permanent. Arguably, it is because the Travellers living in the sites have stayed in the site; they did not move. Notwithstanding that, we make it clear in our funding circular letter we issue annually that it is open to local authorities, and local authorities should move forward on delivering transient sites. Some local authorities will say that they feel the demand is not there. They know better at the local level in that regard. What we are doing through the programme board is we are engaging more broadly with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive with regard to looking at the need for that nomadic lifestyle and transient bays on an all-island basis, and then we will get into more detail beyond that. It is important that we look at it on an all-island basis in the first instance.