Clare County Council has defended its track record on the provision of traveller accommodation, saying it spent in excess of one million euro last year.
It comes as concern has been raised about illegal encampments, which public representatives say are now county wide, with calls on the Government to enforce laws relating to the unauthorised occupation of public lands.
This week’s Joint Policing Committee and Council meetings saw discussions about a number of encampments in this county, and a combined call by local representatives for agencies to come together and tackle the issue, and for the Government to “enforce the laws of the land” in relation to tackling the unauthorised occupation of pubic lands all over Ireland.
Ennistymon Fianna Fáil Councillor Shane Talty says it’s now a county-wide problem, and one that needs to be dealt with.
But he feels the system to do this is broken.
Clare County Council has set up Tenancy Enforcement Team in recent times, which addresses in illegal encampments as part of it’s role.
Mayor of Ennis, Fine Gael Councillor Paul Murphy has acknowledge its work, but he believes the necessary procedures aren’t in place that could prevent people from what he’s described as “playing the system”.
While this week saw local representatives from across the political divide express concerns on this issue, there have been criticisms of Councillors for their approach, with the Clare Public Participation Network saying Travellers have been singled out.
The Council itself, meanwhile, is also insisting that it has invested significant sums in Traveller specific accommodation.
Figures released to the Dáil in 2019 stated that seven traveller accommodation units were delivered in Clare between 2014 and 2018.
While, between 2015 and 2019, the Council spent just over €725,000 in respect of Traveller accommodation.
This is despite it being allocated €1.85 million over the same period, but the Council says that figure is distorted by delays in some projects which saw their cost counted twice, in effect.
In a statement to Clare FM, the Council says it spent over 1 million euro on housing for Travellers in County Clare last year.
Clare County Council Statement:
The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) historically issued annual allocations to the Council to complete the Traveller Accommodation programme, this allocation was based on annual returns to the DHLGH. The return detailed anticipated spending in the relevant calendar year on: (1) existing commitments; (2) projects approved in principle; and (3) planned projects. Projects could only proceed with the approval of the Department and for each project it was necessary to submit a business case (the project detail) to the Department for approval. Invariably projects experienced delays for many reasons and this impacted on the drawdown of funds. The Council could not assign the allocation to other projects and could only spend the money on approved projects.
For example, the 2018 and 2019 allocations relate to the same project – a spend of €700,000 was approved in July 2018 for a specific project, the Council advised that this money could not be spent within 5 months and requested this allocation be deferred to 2019. An allocation of €635,000 was issued for the same project in 2019 and this was spent and claimed in full in 2019. The €700,000 allocation was not available in 2018 to spend on any other project.
