asked the Minister for the Environment if it is proposed to introduce measures to improve the plight of some 400 itinerant families—on average having in excess of four children—in the Dublin area living on both serviced and unserviced sites and in particular his proposals for the unserviced sites which serve 300 families and have no buildings, amenities of any kind or adequate aftercare services.
25.
asked the Minister for the Environment if his attention has been drawn to the number of unserviced itinerant sites in Dublin and throughout the country and his proposals on the matter.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 24 and 25 together.
Regarding the Dublin city and county area, I am informed that to date 168 units of accommodation for travellers' families have been provided on serviced sites, and 42 places have been made available at fully serviced halting places. I am also informed that 180 families are at present in trailers on unauthorised sites of which 40 families are known to be transient families. The local authorities in the Dublin area, acting through a joint committee, are pursuing a programme of settlement with a view to accommodating the families who wish to settle. Trailers on the authorised sites will be available for those in need of them. A complete welfare service, comprising five social workers, is devoted to assisting families who wish to settle.
As regards the country as a whole, including the Dublin areas, I am aware from a count taken by local authorities on 16 October 1978, that although 1,122 families occupied houses, or chalets or trailers on approved sites, 946 families were still camping on the roadside of whom 687 families desired to have settled accommodation.
I have written to local authorities asking for intensification of efforts to provide for travellers' families. I asked that each would prepare a plan to deal with the total problem in their area. Such a plan would in most cases include provision of standard houses, chalets on residential sites and halting places for transient families, according to the individual needs of the families camping in the area. I suggested consultation between local authorities in the case of providing for transient families, so as to ensure location of halts to best advantage.
The primary responsibility for providing accommodation and facilities rests with the local authorities. My Department give every encouragement and assistance including financial assistance at the rate of 100 per cent of the capital cost of providing residential sites and halting sites.
In view of the fact that the Minister has written—I am not sure when he did so—to all local authorities to ask for an intensification of efforts in this regard, does he propose, if such local authorities take up his offer, to make adequate additional resources available?
Yes, 100 per cent.
Additional resources?
Additional resources up to 100 per cent of the cost are made available to local authorities.
Will it be limited to the degree that the local authorities are willing to take up the Minister's request to intensify their efforts?
It will depend to what degree they do it, but a 100 per cent grant is available to them and many authorities are doing it. With regard to another part of the Deputy's question, 17 August was the date of the letter.
I am glad that the Minister, even if belatedly, has come to a realisation of the importance and impact of this question. Does he consider in this, the International Year of the Child, and as regards the emphasis he places in his answer in providing, among other things, more trailers for families to live in, that that is the right kind of approach to take? Does he accept that there are hundreds, as his answer and certainly my question stated, of families living on unserviced sites, that is, sites without basic hygiene facilities or normal facilities which would be essential to a decent standard of living? Could the Minister take a new initiative on this matter and not just appeal to the local authorities but take action himself to ensure that this scandal comes to an end?
They are under continuous pressure from me to end this scandal. I have toured some of these settlements and the halt-over areas in this city and country in an effort to intensify the interest of local authorities. I will continue to pressurise them to deal with the problem until it is eliminated from our society.
In fairness it is unreasonable for the Minister to imply that he is the good boy——
The Deputy should ask a question and not engage in debate.
Does the Minister consider it just that he should imply that he is right in this and that it is due to some recalcitrance on the part of local authorities that the problem has not resolved itself? If the Minister has been consistently pressurising the local authorities and if the problem is still there in gigantic proportions with the enormous hardships involved, is it not clear that the traditional type of approach to the problem is inadequate and that some new initiative is necessary and not vague references to local authorities who are not here to defend themselves?
I am not finding fault with local authorities. Many of them are complying with particular programmes and availing of the grants. They will continue to do so and more of them are doing so now than previously. I expect that this problem will be eliminated in the future. There are some people who do not want to settle. Hopefully the ones who do will be settled in as short a time as possible. As Minister, it is my duty to intensify the programme and make moneys available. It is all happening in recent years, as the Deputy knows.
Surely there is no excuse for unserviced sites.
There is no excuse.
The remaining questions will appear on the Order Paper for the next sitting day.
