Mr. Paul Benson:

The point the Deputy makes is understood. Just over 2,000, or 22%, of Traveller households currently live in Traveller-specific accommodation. There are differing opinions as to whether Travellers are expressing that opinion because they want to live in standard accommodation or they are expressing that preference because it is the easiest way to get accommodation. The identifier will start that process, but the Deputy is correct that it will take time for that to feed through the system, although we hope that local authorities will go through all of the applications from people they think may be Travellers and get them to identify as such. We can then start the work to determine, once and for all, in an evidential way whether Travellers are freely expressing a preference for standard local authority accommodation or whether they would like Traveller-specific accommodation.

There are different views on that and no way of proving one side wrong or the other right. We need to get the baseline data right and we have started that process. Until we get that in place, it is difficult to resolve that issue and have an informed view on it.