Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I wish to know whether the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has monitored the progress of South Dublin County Council, of which I was previously a member, in terms of the delivery of its Traveller accommodation programme. There does not seem to have been much progress in respect of this programme, which was adopted almost five years ago and which is due for completion in 2004.

There has been a reduction in the number of dwellings and halting sites bays provided by South Dublin County Council in that period. There are different reasons for that, particularly in cases where sites had to be closed down and new ones opened elsewhere and where emergency accommodation had to be provided, etc. However, there is a problem in terms of delivery. The Government has required local authorities to put in place Traveller accommodation programmes, etc. The situation is similar to that relating to housing programmes. Is the county council being given the necessary support to allow it to deliver on its targets or is the council at fault in some way? Progress has been extremely slow.

The situation in respect of housing has improved. In my county council area, we are starting to see delivery of such housing but this took some time to achieve. The same cannot be said, however, with regard to the Traveller accommodation programme. This is leading to a lack of faith on the part of the settled and Traveller communities. Many members of the Traveller community do not have anywhere to stay or do not have proper accommodation. These people were given hope when the accommodation programme was adopted, but the closer we come to the completion date, and in the absence of delivery, they are losing that hope.

Members of the settled community do not really understand that some of the illegal sites in their areas only came into being because enough permanent accommodation has not been provided. I accept that there are small numbers of Travellers who are not indigenous and who come here to stay for a couple of weeks on illegal or unauthorised sites and leave a mess which has to be cleared up by the county council. These people cause a great deal of distress to local communities.