Ms Margaret Casey:

As Mr. Martin Collins has said, and as Senator Flynn and other Travellers will be very aware, the Traveller accommodation programme has failed Travellers since the beginning of time to right now. Cena provides solutions for long-term accommodation, assessment of needs and Travellers working with other Travellers. I think that is the way forward in terms of an approved housing body and a specialised body, which is Cena. Cena means "home" in Gammon. We have to accept that the programme is a smokescreen and has not delivered any Traveller-specific accommodation. What it has done to my people is assimilation and it has destroyed a lot of the Traveller community. It is my role here today to bring about long-term solutions and short-term solutions as there is a huge crisis in trailer loans and rentals. I believe that Travellers should not seek trailer loans and should rent them like settled people rent council homes. In the long term, we want to build modular homes that have been specifically designed to meet the needs of the Traveller community.

As I said at the beginning, the Department gave us a commitment a couple of years ago that it would support us to grow our model across the other housing associations and approved housing bodies. The associations and housing bodies want to work with us and we want to work with them but we did not get support and the Department has failed to deliver.