Dessie Ellis (Dublin North-West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. O'Sullivan for his presentation. The system by which local authorities access funding has changed. I am curious about how that is monitored. In the past, local authorities did not draw down funding allocated to them. Is adherence to the need to draw down funding being monitored? We are relying on the local authorities to draw down this funding but certain local authorities have not been good at doing so in the past.

The new caravan loan scheme is quite well used in my area. I still receive lots of requests about it. There is a new round coming up, as far as I am aware. The loan is limited to a maximum of €80,000, according to Mr. O'Sullivan. I ask him to elaborate on that.

There is so much disparity between Travellers, depending on whether they are in halting sites or in ordinary accommodation or in receipt of a payment under the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, or rent supplement. How do we get an overall picture of the number of people in the Traveller community looking for accommodation? Does the Department single that out in order to get a view as to where this is going?

In recent years, the number of Traveller families going into local authority housing has been huge compared to the size of the halting sites or the amount of housing in areas such as Villa Park, which is overcrowded. We are supposed to be building new units, and they have been promised, but it has been going on for a long time with Dublin City Council. I am very annoyed that it has just been sitting there for the past number of years. I would like to get picture of how these things are monitored.