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

Those of us in the House at the moment who are focused on this area have an ambition for this money to be spent. There is responsibility on all stakeholders, including Deputies, councillors, Senators, local managers and local authority staff as well as local communities and local Traveller groups. We need to work on this together. The Traveller accommodation programme review points out various difficult areas – it is not limited to one side. I urge anyone who wishes to see progress to work with us to get progress.

We are trying to get this year's allocation spent along with potential changes recommended by the expert group. However, people have to recognise their responsibilities across the board and across the system. That means changes for all sides if we are to get this money spent. I have seen some accommodation that is absolutely not acceptable for these times. Regardless of what party a person is from or what ambitions that person has, it is important that we get this money spent. I hope that we can work with people who are solution-focused. I see people who are objecting or delaying accommodation solutions for different reasons and that is not acceptable either. I appeal to people not to play politics with this in the years ahead because there is a duty on all of us to deliver accommodation. Let us be clear: there is difficulty in some cases with spending on the social housing budget. It does not only apply to Traveller-specific accommodation. We have difficulty in general with social housing projects. We are trying to bring in new design and quality measures to ensure we bring forward top class projects that will be more acceptable to communities. All of us have to play our part.

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