Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

A total of 1,400 units of accommodation for Travellers were provided or refurbished in the first four years of the programme, which is by multiples higher than anything that had happened in the previous 20 or 30 years. Provisional figures indicate that, at the end of last year or at sometime during the year, the number of families on unauthorised sites formerly referred to as roadside was less than 800 compared to close on 1,300 before the scheme started. The reduction of numbers in unauthorised sites occurred in a period where there was an increase of 671 of the overall number of Traveller families, which was almost 1,300. With almost 700 extra families going in, we brought back the figures to less than 800.

A total of €100 million in capital funding was provided to the local authorities in the first four years of the programmes for new and refurbished halting sites and group based houses. A further €40 million was available last year. The overall figure for services this year is over €100 million. This is in addition to expenditure on standard local authority houses provided to Travellers under the local authority housing programme which is a very good scheme.

In October of last year, the Cabinet committee on social inclusion established an interagency action group with the remit to ensure the relevant statutory agencies involved make progress in delivering services across the Traveller sites. The Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Fahey, has been extremely active in trying to drive co-operation and these efforts.

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