Council promises housing, defends halting site role

The rundown state of the Maelraun temporary halting site at Tallaght, Co Dublin, is not the result of neglect by South Dublin County Council, a senior official said yesterday.

He was responding to an article and photograph in The Irish Times yesterday. Mr Mick Fagan, senior administrative officer at the county council's Traveller accommodation unit, said yesterday: "I would only ask why some bays at the site are in pristine condition while others are as depicted in the picture."

The County Council had provided two skips at the site entrance up to late last year, but they were being filled with scrap, builders' rubble and tree tops, with no room for domestic rubbish, he said. Seven skips were destroyed by fire last year alone, and each was replaced.

It was then decided to give each family a wheelie bin instead. These were collected every Wednesday, while contractors collected scrap at the site on a regular basis. Last year contractors also undertook 10 major clean-ups at the site.

Electricity, which is free, was being used by some of the Travellers for their scrap and recycling businesses. It was this which caused the overloading.

Bays at the site had been tarmacadamed, but this was being undermined, damaged in one instance at least by flooding caused by a cold water tap which had been moved away from its drain and was never turned off.

He described the Maelruan's site as "very basic" and "not the prettiest by any stretch of the imagination", and said it would be closed "within 12 to 18 months". In the meantime, he appealed to Travellers at the site to go halfway with the council in keeping it clean and in good condition.

He reiterated the council's "firm intention" to house all the Travellers seeking such accommodation by the end of 2002. Currently South Dublin County Council is accommodating 267 Traveller families, some in permanent halting sites (58), houses (80), group housing (19), 50 in "a state-of-the-art" temporary halting site at Clondalkin and 50 at halting sites in Maelruan's and Lynch's Lane.

These latter, and the 40 families still on the roadside in the South County area, were "top priority" where the council's Traveller accommodation unit was concerned, he said.