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

I wish to clarify that it will not be a big round of consultation at all. To be fair to all of the various stakeholders who will be involved in implementing the actions, I need to get some quick comments from them. This will include the national Traveller accommodation consultative committee, NTACC, which is there to advise me and the rest of us on this. That group has not given me its formal thoughts as I have not had a chance to engage with it. I have had some initial brief submissions from the three main Traveller organisations represented on the NTACC. I understand they want to give some further thoughts on that and I am anxious to get them. We have had submissions from the City and County Management Association, CCMA, the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, the Irish Traveller Movement accommodation association committee, CENA, and Wexford County Council. I am also awaiting a submission, which is on its way to me, from the Department of Justice and Equality. That is important. When we have the submissions we can move on this. The plan is to put in place a project board, which I will sit on, to drive these actions. There will be a little bit of expertise required, if need be, for each action in certain areas. They are also being put together. We fully intend to move on with this as soon as possible and will not sit back.

While the spend is a lot higher than 20% now, it should be at 100% and they should be looking for more. The Minister, Deputy Murphy, and I are on record saying that we want more money spent in this regard. We recognise the need. If there are available resources, we use them to find other accommodation solutions for Travellers, even if not Traveller-specific. The money is put to good use. It is not handed back. It is spent on housing and housing solutions, and it is important to recognise that too. We want it spent in the right way, however. There are also some planning changes there, but it is to be hoped that if everybody buys into this, we will be able to make some great progress.

With regard to the delays in 2017, the Deputy will be aware of some of the history of that. We would not accept all the responsibility for that. I believe it was a little bit slow and it should have moved faster, but there were reasons for that. We are moving on in the right direction now and it is important that we do so.

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