Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I thank the Chair and I thank the witnesses from Mayo County Council and Cork City Council for their attendance. We all agree that the housing issue is a serious issue for the settled communities, the Travelling community and any other community. It is a crisis issue and it has not happened overnight. The role of this committee is to hold the local authorities' feet to the fire, not so much about what has not happened up to now but what can be done into the future. I have a question for Cork City Council. The witnesses mentioned that there are 520 families who live in Cork city and who engage with the council. How many official halting sites and how many unofficial sites are there in Cork city? In the overall development plan of the city, does the council have specific areas zoned in the development plan for housing for the Travelling community? In its specific Traveller accommodation programme, does it have plans for moving out of here? Earlier, it was mentioned that Spring Lane originally started off with ten families but has increased fivefold, which means 50 families. Twenty-seven new housing units are being built in Spring Lane and Ellis's Yard, which means there could be perhaps 23 other families. Where do they go? Is provision being made for them?

What sort of future planning do the councils in Mayo and Cork have in mind for the families in the Travelling community? I note that Travellers are 22% more likely to become homeless. The number of homeless Travellers is much higher than in the general community. Even though they are only 1% of the population, it seems crazy that despite all the avenues we have now and even though there is more consciousness about providing housing for the Traveller community, improvement depends ultimately on how we deal with this. I think 27 new homes is brilliant. It is fantastic that we have got to this point and that the Part 8 process should be only a six-week process. Hopefully, building on that site will start over the next period of time. As I said, however, there are 23 other families. Essentially, what is the city council doing in its development plan to deal with the future and for those families that are there at the moment?

Likewise in Mayo, we cannot continue at a very low level of building homes on halting sites. As for the worst thing that can happen, which the witnesses will agree happens everywhere - the Irish went to Kilburn and to other places in England and other nationalities arrived in England as well - is that each community tends to track their own community. They come in and live in short-term overcrowded rented housing and then that becomes an issue. There is no doubt but that in those 27 new housing units, family members will probably move in with the residents unless they have somewhere to go. What I am saying is a that a housing plan for halting sites around the city or for housing schemes around the city has to be in place in order that the community knows there is not going to be more overcrowding in their homes.

I want to tease that out with the witnesses and see where they are going with that. How far ahead are they thinking in the context of housing for the Travelling community?

As Deputy Ó Cuív said, we are probably buying mobile homes that are three years old. They only last seven years if people are living in them 365 days a year. They need to be replaced every seven years without cost to the families if that is where the families want to live. We need to make finance available for that.

That covers what I wanted to ask between the development plans and Traveller accommodation programmes. Cork has a Traveller accommodation plan for 2019 to 2024 and Mayo is preparing a draft Traveller accommodation programme to commence in 2025. I would like to get feedback on that please.