I wish to share my time with Deputy Dan Wallace.
Adjournment Debate. - Cork Property Invasion by Travelling Traders.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
Cork has been invaded by travelling traders during the past few weeks. The traders who have invaded the technology park on Model Farm Road have already had an injunction served against them for illegally parking in the technology park in Wilton. Another group of traders has taken over the Ballinure GAA club pitch at the Mahon in Blackrock in Cork. This means that the camogie and youth teams from that club cannot play on the pitch. An adjunct to that group have sighted themselves on a council site at the entrance to Ballincollig. In gaining admittance to that site they broke a padlocked gate and ignored all the barriers to entry. I went to visit the site last night and I noticed that the cars and the vans being used by these traders had 1992 and 1993 registrations. The traders seem to be well heeled. Their caravans were modern models with British registration numbers and appeared to be expensive.
The dilemma facing ordinary people is that if they invade private property they are prosecuted but when traders invade there are no such prosecutions as they seem to be able to ignore the rights of ownership, both private and public. They can be shifted only by means of an injunction, which is an extremely expensive process. It is sad to say that one of the families who has entered on to the council site in Ballincollig has been the subject of an injunction on three previous occasions and has thus occasioned a cost to the proprietor of private property, to a local authority and the IDA of £10,000. The cost in this instance has to be borne by private companies, by the IDA or by the local authority. Oddly enough those who have transgressed have not been asked to bear a proportion of the costs of these injunctions. Is it any wonder then that they could sneer at me and others who visited the site last evening. In my view they think they are beyond the law.
Is it not time to change the law to meet the emerging situation? Does the Minister appreciate the bad example of operating safely outside the law that has been given to the children of these families? Does he appreciate the anguish that is being caused to decent and upright citizens who wring their hands and ask is there one law for the taxpaying private individual and another for those for whom the law does not seem to cater and who do not mind flouting it?
I have a genuine sympathy for itinerant families who genuinely are looking for a house or halting site to live in permanently. However, the vast majority of the people who are trespassing on private or public property are only on a jaunt for the summer and this happens every summer. The law needs to be changed. I have no sympathy for those who have houses — I believe many of them have — and give them up during the summer period to take to the roads in order to trade. They ignore the rights of others, indeed they live off the backs of innocent victims who have paid a hefty price for their factory premises or depots.
The law needs to be amended and I urge the Minister in the strongest possible terms to examine this law with a view to putting regulations in place to ensure that the law of the land is obeyed by everybody.
I share the concern that the people of Cork have expresed about this matter. Cork Corporation has housed in excess of 100 traveller families and therefore it is very disappointing to see that well-heeled travellers can come into an area and invade the IDA estate without concern about the damage they are doing.
This is not just a matter for the Department of Justice. The Departments of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the Environment also have an important role to play. I appeal to the Ministers in the three Departments to come together to deal with this problem once and for all. All local authorities should play their part. As Deputy Batt O'Keeffe said most of these traders have their own homes but they like to take to the road for the summer and they do not give a tuppeny damn whom they upset as long as they get their own way. It certainly appears to law-abiding citizens that they can do what they like and get away with it. I hope the Minister will have something positive to say about this problem.
I take this opportunity to outline to the Dáil the responsibility of both the Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice in relation to encampments set up by travelling traders. We fully appreciate the difficulties faced by all those who are confronted with this unfortunate problem. However, the resolution of the issue is usually a civil matter rather than one of law enforcement and as such there are strict limits to what the Garda can do. Breaches of the law such as illegal parking of caravans or mobile homes which come to their notice are dealt with by the Garda Síochána as appropriate. It is a matter for the Garda to enforce the law in such cases in the same way as they do when other breaches of the parking or the traffic law are detected.
In order for a parking offence to be committed, the person or persons concerned must have parked their vehicles on a public roadway. It is important to point out that no breach of the parking regulations occurs unless the vehicle in question is parked on a public roadway. Persons who park vehicles on property which is owned either privately or by a public body such as a local authority are not committing any offence under the parking laws and are therefore immune to the criminal law. Removing caravans and travellers from private property is a civil matter and as such it is not open to the Garda to intervene. In such circumstances it is a matter for the owner of the property to seek a court injunction to have the trespassers removed. If requested, the Garda will, of course, attend the scene to prevent breaches of the peace.
Let me assure my colleagues, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe and Deputy Dan Wallace, that I will bear in mind Deputy O'Keeffe's suggested changes in the law and I will take note of Deputy Dan Wallace's suggestion of co-ordinated action by the three relevant Government Departments. I will communicate with the Deputies privately on the matter.
Obviously we are quite concerned that the law will not be changed——
I now call Deputy Seymour Crawford.
It is about time that people flouting the law——
A group has been set up to look at this.