Mr. Martin Riordan:

It was nine houses that were turned down. It is important to put on record that the Traveller community is not the only community that refused houses. This was put into the report to show that we are offering houses that we think meet the needs, but they are not in all cases acceptable to the applicant. However, that happens equally on the settled community side. We are trying to match a housing need. An offer is made and it may be refused for certain reasons, but it shows we are actually trying to offer houses and to match them to what we on the committee understood as the accommodation needs of the Traveller community, as they expressed them to be. When we offer houses, they can be refused for various reasons based on the particular house and the particular family's view as to what their needs would be. There is generally a demand for a larger house and, in many cases, a larger house with some area of ground around it. In the current housing accommodation situation, such houses do not come up that often, so it is very difficult to match one need against the other.