Conditions for some Travellers 'shameful'

The recent deaths of two children had highlighted the fact that some members of the Traveller community were living in the most appalling conditions on roadsides and unserviced sites, Joe Higgins (Socialist Party, Dublin West) said.

He said that Michael McGinley (3) and his brother, Joe (22 months), had died tragically in a devastating fire in their caravan in Clondalkin, Dublin. "I do not wish to speculate on the cause of the fire, although there was a suggestion in The Irish Times yesterday that it may have resulted from families in one part of the site being forced to make amateur connections to the electricity power supply."

Mr Higgins said he had visited encampments of landless people in Brazil last January. The sum total of the facilities were black polythene covered shelters, dirt tracks, cold water taps and communal outdoor toilets.

"Is it not shameful in the extreme that in one of the richest countries in Europe, families, and especially innocent children, are living in squalor not far removed from that of the poorest people on earth?"

Expressing sympathy with the McGinley family, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said that the deaths were being investigated by South Dublin County Council, Dublin Fire Brigade and the Garda.

"Pending the outcome of these investigations, it would be inappropriate to issue any detailed statements. I do not want to get into any speculation. It would not be fair to the family concerned to do so this week, but these issues will be documented in due course."

Mr Ahern said there were "issues concerning this particular site which both the deputy and I know about, but in fairness to the bereaved family I do not think it is for me, or the day, to go into that".

Mr Higgins said the issue was not really about the site, but about the general conditions in which Traveller people live around the country.

When Mr Higgins said that almost 1,000 families - 10 per cent of the Traveller community - were still on the roadsides or unserviced sites, Minister of State for Housing Noel Ahern claimed the figures were wrong.

The Taoiseach said that a total of 1,400 units of accommodation for Travellers were provided or refurbished in the first four years of the five-year accommodation programme, which had been adopted, as a requirement, by every local authority. This represented multiples higher than anything that had happened in the previous 20 or 30 years.

Provisional figures had indicated that, at the end of last year or at some time during the year, the number of families on unauthorised sites, formerly referred to as roadside, was less than 800 compared to close on 1,300 before the scheme started.

Mr Ahern said €100 million in capital funding was provided to the local authorities in the first four years of the programme, while a further €40 million was available last year.