Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to this timely and important debate. I live close to three Traveller accommodation sites and my experience has been nothing but positive. One is a place called Soldiers' and Sailors' Field on Monkstown Avenue. I commend Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on its pioneering and imaginative approach. I was a member of the council when it took a conscious decision to construct an elaborate and exciting children's playground at the gate of a Traveller accommodation site. This was done with the consent and permission of the Travellers in question. I visited the playground yesterday and nothing in it is broken. While there is no gate on the playground, it has not been damaged or vandalised despite what everyone said would happen. The playground has been open for many years.What is lovely about it is that children from both the local area Traveller accommodation or elsewhere come to play there. Children have no prejudice or hatred. They accept everyone who engages with them and everyone who plays with them. I recommend to the Minister of State that the Department should examine it because it is a clear opportunity. When there are opportunities and when one identifies common needs in people who wish to live in harmony, play, explore and be part of a community, it works.

Down the road, the Traveller accommodation site on the West Pier is wholly inappropriate accommodation. Every few weeks it is tapped up with timber laths to keep the easterly winds away from the Travellers in caravans. It was never designated as a Traveller accommodation site and it should never have been used for that purpose. I see all the problems down there in what is a very dark place at the edge of a pier. It is not lit and there is no residential connection with anywhere around it other than the sea on one side and the DART line on the other. One sees the pitfalls there and the anti-social behaviour, which does not involve the Traveller community, with people passing by and hurling bottles in or being abusive to the Travellers. Blackrock Park, which is just up the road, is an ideal site, where half of it houses caravans and the other half has permanent structures. It works very well on the edge of a beautiful park. Everyone who travels on the DART each day sees it. The people there are happy and they want to stay there and live there. The only shortcoming there, like most Traveller accommodation, is that it does not necessarily take on board the trades, crafts and skills of some, not all, Travellers. My experience of meeting many Travellers is that they are entrepreneurial, and involved in different activities such as making up trailers, working with scrap metal or whatever else, but they are trades. We are all entitled to work and to earn a few bob from doing something that we are good at and we like to do. The challenge is to marry the capacity of people to work, earn a few bob and put a crust on the table and being happy or peaceful people who are valued and respected. Surely that is not too much to ask for anybody.

The question is how we as politicians respond in an appropriate manner. I am somewhat surprised that there has not been more litigation against politicians in relation to the conduct of some. That goes for every party and none. It is regularly brought to my attention that politicians, from county councillors to Ministers, advocate against the Department's policy. I hear suggestions that we should dispose of sites that are designated for the Traveller accommodation programme, TAP. One of the measures I liked when the programme got going is that TAP sites were designated on county development plan maps. That is part of the planning process. People know what they are buying into. Our planners know what is involved. The TAP is adopted by the local authorities. I ask the Minister of State to consider legislation in this regarding. Under no circumstances should a TAP be removed from a county development plan without at least, first, the consent or knowledge of the Minister. The Department should know if there are substantial changes within the life of a county development plan, which lasts for five years, and if there are variations, it should be notified. We need a mechanism for that and we must monitor the situation. I am not convinced when someone comes to me and says a site worth €2 million is designated for Traveller accommodation and, therefore, it should be sold. That is not good enough. The elected members at some point in the life of the county development plan took a decision when considering Traveller accommodation provision. Such decisions take a long time; they do not happen in five minutes. It is important that all parties and none are briefed about their responsibilities and that they are brought into line by their party leadership if they stray from appropriate language and policy on Traveller accommodation. I do not single anyone out because it happens across the board.

We must be concerned if people are not drawing down the money. We must ask why that is the case. We must be concerned about what the Department is doing about it. If money is not being drawn down then the question is who is driving the national Traveller accommodation strategy? That is important. The buck has to stop somewhere. I am not here to lay blame on anybody. There are no objectives relating to Traveller accommodation in the Rebuilding Ireland programme. I am very well up on that programme. Perhaps a national scheme to address the issue is needed. It is not rocket science. We have 31 local authorities and they need short, medium and long-term objectives. Let us look at the short-term objectives and ask them if they can deliver on the next five Traveller accommodation units in each area.

I do not doubt the Minister of State's personal commitment to the issue, nor do I doubt the commitment of the Department. However, we have a long way to go. We should have meaningful stakeholder engagement because that is important, but we also need to talk to locally elected members about their roles and responsibilities in delivering the TAP.