Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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576. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide the amounts allocated to each local authority for traveller specific accommodation in each of the past four years; if he will provide figures for the money that was actually spent in each case; if moneys not spent were rolled over into the next financial year; if this is counted as part of the annual allocation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26780/13]

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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577. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will consider expanding the traveller accommodation scheme to cover traditional housing in the event that more members of the travelling community opt for such accommodation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26781/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 576 and 577 together.

In accordance with the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998, statutory responsibility for the assessment of the accommodation needs of Travellers and the preparation, adoption and implementation of multi-annual Traveller Accommodation Programmes, designed to meet the accommodation needs of Travellers, rests with individual housing authorities. My Department’s role is to ensure that there are adequate legislative and funding arrangements in place to assist the authorities in providing such accommodation.

My Department provides 100% capital funding to housing authorities for Traveller-specific accommodation. This funding stream is designed to meet the specific distinct accommodation needs of the Traveller community, such as halting sites and group housing schemes. In recent years, a portion of the overall capital allocation was held in reserve by my Department for the purposes of recouping to housing authorities the purchase cost of houses which were required to meet the accommodation needs of Traveller families with specific categories of need.

In accordance with the Housing Needs Assessments carried out by local authorities, the accommodation needs of Travellers can be provided for by way of standard social housing, Traveller-specific group housing or residential caravan parks and halting sites. The majority of Traveller families are accommodated in standard housing provided by local authorities or in private rented accommodation with Rent Supplement support. In submitting proposals under my Department’s Social Housing Investment Programme (SHIP) for the construction and acquisition of social housing , it is a matter for each local authority to determine the particular housing need to be met in each case. Given that the standard housing needs of all categories of persons, including Travellers, are already catered for under SHIP, I do not propose to expand the Traveller Accommodation Programmes to include standard housing provision.

In keeping with the conditions which apply to capital budgets in general, unspent allocations in respect of Traveller accommodation may not be rolled over into the next financial year. The capital allocations in respect of Traveller-specific accommodation over the period 2009-2012 and the amounts recouped are set out in the following table: