Clare council set to stop building Traveller homes

CLARE COUNTY Council is set to stop building Traveller-specific accommodation in Clare.

This follows a report showing that 25 per cent of its 10 group-housing schemes for Travellers – which cost €20 million to build – is vacant.

The report by the council’s Traveller accommodation consultative committee says that the results of the current Traveller accommodation programme “are disappointing”.

It says that five of the homes have been lost through arson, while 27 per cent of current tenancies have lodged transfer requests for other housing.

Arising from the results, the Traveller accommodation consultative committee has agreed that further building will not go ahead. The committee’s recommendations will now go before the full council.

The council states that three new group schemes were constructed as part of the 2009-2013 programme, two in Ennistymon, at Ballymacraven and at Glen North, and one in Ennis, at Knockanean.

The county council’s group-housing construction programme, involving successive Traveller accommodation schemes, which include the current one, resulted in the provision of 63 units of permanent accommodation – 50 houses and 13 bays.

However, the Irish Traveller Movement has warned Clare County Council that if it stops the construction of specific housing for Travellers it would be “in breach of the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998, specifically in relation to Travellers’ human rights. It could lead to opening a legal challenge.”

The chairman of the Traveller accommodation consultative committee, councillor Brian Meaney (Green), yesterday defended the committee’s recommendation. “There is no interest in constructing the Traveller-specific accommodation units the plan envisages,” Mr Meaney said.

“In the current economic climate, it would be madness to construct further expensive housing while currently there are 16 units – that is a quarter of the current Traveller accommodation – that are unoccupied.”