Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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38. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will provide a breakdown of funding provided by his Department to each local authority to date in 2022 under the Traveller Accommodation Programme and to provide a further breakdown by local authority of the funding that is to be used for new Traveller accommodation, refurbishment of existing accommodation, caravan loans, site improvement and so on. [31144/22]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 provides that housing authorities have statutory responsibility for the assessment of the accommodation needs of Travellers and the preparation, adoption and implementation of multi-annual Traveller Accommodation Programmes (TAPs) in their areas. My Department’s role is to ensure that there are adequate structures and supports in place to assist the authorities in providing such accommodation, including a national framework of policy, legislation and funding.

The following table outlines the capital drawdown for each local authority to date in 2022 under the Traveller Accommodation Programme:

Expenditure to date is broadly in line with profiles indicating increasing expenditure arising in the second half of the year. My Department does not allocate specific budgets to individual local authorities. Instead, it is open to local authorities to apply for and drawdown funds from the budget at any time throughout the year and this is actively encouraged by my Department. Full spend of the Traveller accommodation capital budget has been achieved in both 2020 and 2021.