Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and thank Senator Flynn for tabling this topic for us to debate. It is a very important topic.

People in the Travelling community face so many challenges, especially in this time of Covid. These include, as have been mentioned, the high levels of unemployment, challenging health outcomes and, particularly, trying to access accommodation in the private sector. There is discrimination in our society, particularly for minority groups. Many families are living in precarious conditions, especially from a Traveller background. There is short-term housing and a lack of public housing. These are issues we are very familiar with. I am happy to see that the Government has allocated €21.3 million, as the Minister of State noted, for 2021 and this is an increase. However, the Minister of State also noted that it falls short.

I looked at the figures from the recent census. I went back to 2016 and I saw that, overall, there are nearly 500,000 households that rent in Ireland and over 143,000 renting in local authorities. I looked particularly at rental in rural and urban areas. In rural areas, only 13% rent or have properties available for rental. This is really challenging when one looks at people who literally are living off renting. There are communities and families who are trying to rent and there are no properties for them to rent. In rural regional areas, houses are owned so there is little housing available to rent. It just hit me. From the Travelling community, I believe there are 4,000 or so that are renting. I think there are about 8,000 households, though that might not be fully representative, as has been mentioned, in terms of the census. There are about 4,000 families from Traveller backgrounds renting from local authorities. Local authorities are having to provide and that was an increase of about 11% on the previous census.

I will speak to my own area. There is a good Travelling community in Roscommon and east Galway and I spoke to those involved in youth services in Ballinasloe about their concerns. I am hoping that in better times we might be able to invite Senator Flynn to Ballinasloe to speak to some really amazing young people there that are very active in the community. It is really important that Senator Flynn is a role model. An importance will be allocated to her in terms of her role. We are all role models, I hope. The Vice President-elect in the US, Kamala Harris, had a good video recently in which she spoke well about young girls dreaming with ambition and that is what it is about. It is about speaking to the young people in our communities, particularly from Travelling or other minority groups, to encourage them to dream with ambition. Those youth services were delivering activity packs during the lockdown to families, particularly in disadvantaged areas.Most of it involved crafts and things for children to do because they were not able to go to school during the first lockdown. They very quickly realised that there was a huge need for food. People were asking for food to be included in the packs that were being distributed. We know that people are in really challenging circumstances.

People are dropping out of education. Even at second level, they are not going as far as the leaving certificate. It is a challenge in terms of getting jobs. That is all being added into the mix with being able to access housing, which is a significant challenge.

In terms of accommodation, I was a county councillor in Galway County Council and I am aware of the significant pressures that exist in terms of trying to access the HAP scheme and the large waiting lists. A number of families from Traveller backgrounds were in contact with me about housing. It is very difficult.

I am very to happy to hear about the consultation board the Minister of State mentioned. It is important that all voices are heard. Many reports have noted that there are challenges with Travellers accessing accommodation. We have to take account of their unique needs. They are different. We need to make sure their voices are heard, otherwise we will not be successful. That is the aim. The budget is there. We want to make sure that families are being accommodated in the ways in which they need to be. They may not live in our traditional housing estate. It may be the case that they need to be accommodated in more open green areas.

It is very important that we invest more in social workers. We are dealing with very disadvantaged areas. What sort of funds are available for social workers? In terms of ongoing work, from what I understand local authorities can only draw down funding when work has been completed - a great deal of work is ongoing. Given the impact of Covid, will access to those budgets be extended beyond December for local authorities?

Sanitation facilities have been provided to groups living in precarious housing as a result of the impact of Covid. What other measures can be implemented? Does the Minister of Stare foresee any other measures being important for us to put in place over the coming months?

I thank Senator Flynn for bringing this issue to our attention. I hope to work with her on the consultation group. I was very happy to hear that it will include all stakeholders, that we will hear their voices and that we will try to make a concerted effort to try to tackle other areas of disadvantage as well as housing.