An Independent councillor is threatening to legally challenge Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council's draft Traveller accommodation plan if it is adopted by the council. Fiona Gartland reports.
The draft plan aims to provide 65 units of accommodation at 12 sites by 2008. The current plan, which has reached the end of its life, provided only one halting site out of the 16 promised.
Cllr Gearoid O'Keeffe has said the council is ignoring the proper consultative process and has infringed the principles of administrative law in its plan.
"The draft did not take into consideration the views and concerns of local people who had submitted their proposals and who were totally opposed to halting sites at Mount Anville depot and at Roebuck Road on UCD land," Cllr O'Keeffe said.
"This plan was a mirror image of the previous one and did not engage the local community in a meaningful discourse and made a mockery of the consultative process. I am studying this matter and am considering a legal challenge to same."
He said that he supports the need for a comprehensive accommodation plan, but believes that the draft plan for the county is flawed and encourages differences and tensions between the settled community and members of the Travelling community.
"The plan does a great disservice to the Travelling community, in that it does not represent the views of individual Travellers who were in favour of group or standard housing," he said.
The proposed halting sites are planned at Bird Avenue, Windy Arbour; Cloragh, Rockbrook; on the Enniskerry Road at Kilgobbin; Gort Mhuire, Ballinteer; Glenamuck Road, Kilternan; Lehaunstown; Mount Anville Road, Mount Merrion; Pottery Road and the West Pier in Dún Laoghaire; Rathmichael Road in Rathmichael; Stillorgan Grove in Stillorgan; and at Roebuck Road on UCD grounds.
A spokeswoman for the council said it was premature of Cllr O'Keeffe to say that the council hadn't taken into account the views of local residents.
She said there was a handful of submissions from local residents and these would be taken into consideration when a report is brought to councillors on the plan.