Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the officials from Dublin and Galway, the latter of whom I am in continual contact with. I thank them for the work they do.

I have listened with care to what has been said by both parties about the caravan loan scheme.

First, have they any idea as to what they consider the appropriate life cycle of a caravan to be? My understanding is that most of these caravans are second-hand. If a brand-new caravan has a life cycle of, say, eight years, with thermal quality and so on, then, obviously, you have to take off the years before its purchase for the second time. What would the witnesses consider an appropriate life cycle for a caravan before it would have to be replaced in order that people would be living in appropriate accommodation?

A second question arises out of that. Every local authority that has appeared before us has said the money is insufficient, and I think everybody knows that. Have the witnesses any idea as to what would be sufficient? Should there be differences depending on family makeup - in other words, if there are many children and so on? What should we be asking for? Is it €60,000, or €50,000? What would buy a brand-new caravan? Do the witnesses agree that we should be going for brand-new trailers? We would get a longer life cycle out of them. Otherwise, we will have to keep coming back again.

I have another question for both local authorities. I think Galway City Council has already half-answered it, but I want to ask this in a systematic way. There are people who choose to live in trailers, and nobody is trying to move them on. That is their accommodation. We need an objective view as to what is a trailer's life cycle and what is considered a suitable place to live. This is not emergency accommodation. It is nothing like that. This is permanent. Have the witnesses done a needs assessment? It is a fairly finite request from us to the Government, out of all the money being spent on housing, to suggest something we can do quickly and to get every trailer that every Traveller is living in up to this objective standard in order that this is done. After that, obviously, you just replace the caravans as they come to their sell-by date. I would be interested in the witnesses' response to this because we need to formulate a systematic process here rather than a drip-feed, whereby a number is picked which might have no relationship to the demand. If it were to cost a few billion, I would say, "Okay, financial issues come into account", but in the context of the housing budget, this is small money to solve a problem immediately. My understanding is that with a lot of housing problems at the moment, money is not the issue; the issue is that a lot of them - we will talk to Galway City Council about this - become intractable because of, for example, planning, design and all these things that take time. I would be interested in anything else I have not covered.

I will make one other point. I understand that there are variable ways in which the repayment is calculated. Should there be just one way whereby you pay a fixed sum irrespective of the value of the caravan? I think the sum in question is €20 a week, and the Chair can correct me if necessary. They would know beforehand that that is the amount to pay. My understanding is that in a lot of these situations there is the trailer as well as a permanent building and you have to pay rent on the permanent building. That has to be taken into account. Would it be better, rather than dealing with differentials, income assessments and all sorts of other complications, that if you got one, it is a fixed amount and they know beforehand so there is certainty? I am sure the revenue to the county council out of these trailers is neither here nor there in the greater scheme of revenue.