Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Broin asked me at the end of his initial contribution about giving the Traveller community full choice, which is something I agree with completely. The Government is committed to enabling all households to access good quality housing appropriate to household circumstances in their communities of choice. It is open to Travellers to opt for any form of State-supported accommodation. Traveller accommodation needs are addressed to a significant extent through mechanisms other than Traveller-specific projects, for example general social housing or the private rental sector with supports such as the housing assistance payment. I accept, however, that while that is allowed for, it does not always happen or is not always easy. We need to improve that choice. It is there but it does not always happen. We need to work on that, which is something about which I also agree with the Deputy. Like members of any community, people want to have a choice, which is what we are trying to achieve through our Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness across all the sectors. People should feel they have a choice no matter what their record, their community, or their age, including people of older years. They have different circumstances and different choices. We all know that choice is very limited for many groups of people due to the pressures on the housing sector. We want to improve on that as well.

The recently completed review of the Traveller accommodation programme gives us the factual information and will be a key platform for the special expert group to progress its work effectively. I agree with Deputy Ó Broin that it is important to get the expert group right. I will take on board any advice in that regard. The process is there at the moment such that names will come back to us. We can then tease through that to ensure we have all the expertise. There is a desire to get this right and find ways to spend our money and increase resources to deliver choice for people effectively and in such a way as to secure value for money for the taxpayer. Every local authority must play its part. That is key. I share that view with the Deputy. I see no reason this cannot happen within 12 months. It is a very long timeframe. We should be able to do it sooner if we can. That will be our target. It would be ideal to have this report and be up and running as soon as we can.

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