I regret the Minister with responsibility for this area is not in the House to hear what I have to say. With due respect to the Minister of State, he has no responsibility in this matter.
In May this year, the House passed important and long overdue legislation, the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Bill. It has the support of all parties in the House because it attempts to deal in a co-ordinated way with implementing halting sites and accommodation programmes for the travelling community while also laying down important legal markers in terms of unauthorised sites which are a blot on the landscape of this city and country. It attempts to deal effectively with finding a home for 1,100 travelling families living on the side of the road.
I discovered that, on 11 September, the Minister for State, Deputy Molloy, signed the commencement date for the legislation. To date, the relevant local authorities whose statutory function is to implement this law, have yet to receive the necessary guidelines from the Department of the Environment and Local Government. That is a disgrace. Politicians are attempting to sell this legislation to the community, arguing there is a need for accommodation while, at the same time, saying new legal methods are in place for dealing with unauthorised sites, and are taking difficult and courageous decisions in each case where there is a need for a halting site, while the Department is standing idly by and is not helping local authorities and politicians in the important task which lies ahead. Why is it the case that a law passed in this House has not come into effect three or four months later and more than a month after its date of commencement? Why is the law established by the House not in force in the community? It is not good enough that we are being left to carry the can.
My area of Tallaght has many unauthorised sites within a one mile radius. They are there illegally as a result of the legislation being passed. The local authority does not want to address the issue because it has not received the guidelines from the Department of the Environment and Local Government. That is classic bureaucracy of the worst kind. I want answers as to why this situation has been allowed to develop because if it continues for much longer there will be riots in the streets.