Mr. John O'Sullivan:

The Deputy asked a question relating to Ms Kelly's earlier point about the formation of an independent body to oversee the delivery of Traveller accommodation. Where does this committee feel that suggestion or recommendation is? I am a community development worker and have sat on consultative committees on accommodation for the past 15 years. I have seen accommodation plan after accommodation plan come and go. There is little accountability around whether the targets set out in those plans are met, to the frustration of all involved. We see the need. We are out on the ground, in and out of the sites and we see where people are at, their living conditions, and the basic rights being denied to children in terms of warmth and electricity. I remember working with a Traveller family and the father told me his children sometimes had to do their homework under a candle because the generator that powered their mobile home would work some days but not others. He told me it was an immense struggle for the children to have their homework done, or to have uniforms washed to go to school. As a community worker, I attend a consultative committee that I sometimes feel is a talking shop, with few outcomes. You get frustrated as a worker and a Traveller, when you go back to face the community when it is looking for results. It is looking for some sort of tangible outcome you can hang your hat on to show what has been achieved in the last plan, and that is where you are going. As the Deputy says, the time for talking has finished.