Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentation. We face great challenges. If plans and strategies on their own were the solution we would not be here today because we have had plenty of them over the years. However, when we meet Travellers, they do not have houses, accommodation or trailers. They do not have a decent place to live. This is a major challenge. I deal with many people from the Traveller community. Some are second-generation in housing estates. They want a house in a housing estate. In Galway 50% of the people who are homeless are Travellers. A very high number of people on the housing list are Travellers. We cannot build enough regular houses and we cannot do enough for the homeless. If this was all done, it would benefit a large cohort of Travellers in my constituency whose choice is to live in a mixed housing estate.

We must ramp that up so it is not one against the other. For those who choose, there have been some improvements but we are not nearly there. It is a crisis on the homeless side and some houses are being built but it is still way too slow. Galway City Council is way behind Galway County Council and I believe the position is similar across the country. I will discuss that in a minute.

The Traveller-specific accommodation scheme has been a total failure. The local authorities, collectively, do not have their hearts in it. As we all know, it is awful easy to find delays in the system. The committee could look for the establishment of a Traveller housing authority for Traveller-specific accommodation, which would then get on with it. There have been too many years of failure. I am interested in hearing the witnesses' response to that suggestion.

There are over 30 local authorities and trying to herd all of them into a proper space is like trying to herd mice. Some local authorities do much better than others and some do well for a period but then fall back. Reluctantly, because we do not like taking power away from local authorities, I will say they have failed at this job. Where they have failed in other spheres of activity, we have said that the system is not working. I am not sure, in terms of local authorities, if their hearts are in this. The committee should put this issue very high on our agenda and get on with it.

The caravan scheme should really be called the trailer scheme. In my view, when you try to get maximum impact for minimum disruption, you have a better chance of winning. I will outline what I believe we should demand. It should be standard for everybody who is afforded a trailer that they pay €500 and then €20 a week afterwards for seven years, and that should be it. I rang my local authority and it seems different local authorities take different amounts. I asked how much a certain constituent would have to pay and the authority seemed to indicate it would be €20 a week. That was the policy it was adopting using a very complicated formula. Having read the documentation, it was not clear to me how the amounts were calculated and the person I spoke to in the office was not clear about it either.

This is a loan scheme but not in a conventional sense. A payment of €500 followed by €20 per week will obviously not pay for a trailer. It should not pay for one and it is not meant to. The rent paid for a local authority house would not pay for the capital cost either. Let us say there would be a payment of €500 and then €20 a week for seven years and after that the person would not pay anything. The difference between a loan or grant - call it what you want - and the alternative of the local authority owning the caravan is the issue of maintenance and the responsibility for it. I am open on that question but I we could get bogged down if we started to make that jump. I am in a hurry, or at least my constituents are in a big hurry and they do not want any further delay. They will not tolerate us going into semantics if that delays things. We should make the scheme simple and standard. Ownership should be left as is and the amounts paid should be €500 followed by a weekly rent of €20 for seven years, after which there would be no further payment.

On objective criteria, a new trailer should be provided for everybody who needs one. That is the biggest issue. The terms are important but there are people sleeping in cold, damp and miserable conditions in caravans that are up to 20 years old. To be honest, if the State is messing around with conditions by leaving the scheme at 80 caravans or trailers a year - we should use the word "trailer" - where it might take five or ten years to get to all the people in the queue, it is no good. One great thing about doing constituency work is that when I am out at a halting site visiting the trailers, I meet real people. I see how they keep everything very neat and tidy but they are living in trailers that are totally beyond use. I say to myself that this is their situation, it is where they sleep, live and cook, and it is home for them. The most important part in remedying this is the "now".

I ask the witnesses to respond to my suggestion that the committee ask for objective need to be considered using criteria that would be quickly ascertained; that money would be provided to replace any trailer that was substandard, according to those criteria; and that the terms would be very clear - €500 and then €20 a week for no longer than seven years. I am not asking for an instant response but we need a quick response on this. I urge people to go for this approach and stick to it until we get it because it is one issue of accommodation that can be solved without a huge cost to the State.

In my constituency, we are getting about three or four trailers in Galway city, where the problem is greatest. I think we have about 30 families who need trailers. Four into 30 goes 7.5 times, using the old maths at any rate. That means people will be waiting another seven and a half years to get a trailer.

The Traveller organisations and the Department should research the cost of new trailers. I do not buy the argument that one-off trailer purchases would inflate the market. For research reasons, we could look at what other countries such as the UK paid. I would much prefer if Irish suppliers were used but if they are going to do us, then I would not use them. Inflation is the excuse being used for not doing this now. The amount of money it takes - the purchase price and the instalments - should be made available. We should put a three-year life cycle on second-hand trailers. It should be seven years minus the age of the new Traveller trailer being bought. If that was done, you would be coming back every two or three years. This should be done properly. I forgot to mention that it should be the price of a new trailer. I do not buy the argument made. We cannot wait on the basis that this might otherwise inflate the market. That is like saying we will not build any more houses, schools, modular classrooms or anything else because it might inflate the building market. That is always a risk but this scheme is not one that will shake the trees of the State.