Traveller Accommodation Crisis

cork | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Friday September 24, 2004 16:31 by David McCarthy - TVG tvgcork at hotmail dot com 11 Comeragh Park, The Glen, Cork. 021 4503786

Submission to Cork County Council

Resolving the Traveller accommodation crisis is a matter of urgency and one of primary concern in combating discrimination. The negative public perception of Travellers is reinforced daily by the sight of families living on roadside sites with no sanitation, water, electricity, refuse disposal, or facilities to dispose of liquid waste. The local authorities collectively are the only agents of change who can help improve the position of Travellers through co-ordinated action to address the human rights problems of Travellers by resolving their most basic need of shelter.
TVG makes the case to Cork County Council to take the appropriate actuion as part of its Traveller Accommodation Programme 2005 to 2008.

Earth moving equipment moves in on paralysed Traveller women

Traveller Visibility Group
Submission to Cork County Council [South Cork Division]
Regarding the Traveller Accommodation Programme
2005 – 2008

Submitted by the Traveller Visibility Group (TVG),
11 Comeragh Park,
The Glen, Cork.
021 4503786
tvgcork@hotmail.com


1. Introduction
1.1 Travellers who live on the roadside experience risk to their safety, suffer aggression and racist abuse, achieve fewer educational qualifications, die younger, and suffer from a number of illnesses caused by exposure to the elements and unsanitary conditions.
1.2 On top of all that, the existence of roadside sites reinforces negative Traveller stereotypes which fuel anti-Traveller prejudice.
1.3 In making this submission, we are concentrating on the issue of lack of provision of accommodation for roadside families, where we see the greatest need arising over the next four years 2005 to 2008.
1.4 We propose the need for national collaboration between local authorities to provide, within the next four years, adequate emergency, short term and transient accommodation, to meet the needs of families who live on the roadside for whatever reason. In the absence of this collaboration, it is unlikely that single local authorities will act in isolation.
1.5 The ongoing chronic shortage of facilities will inevitably result in a continuation of roadside camps, which will, inter alia, perpetuate the health, education and welfare difficulties experienced by the families caught up in this situation. Moreover, since the introduction of the 2002 Trespass legislation, we are witnessing the new phenomenon of Travellers being convicted as criminals simply for having nowhere to live. The problem is not helped by the actions of some politicians who exploit the existence of Traveller camps for their own political gain.
1.6 Lastly, some elements of the media, even in the broadsheet papers, seize on the existence of highly visible roadside poverty as evidence that Travellers are the cause of their own failure to integrate with the majority settled population.

2. The policy context
2.1 Many changes were expected since the adoption of the Traveller Task Force Report in 1995. Two years later, the Ombudsman’s Office reported that . . .
While there is evidence of an increased political willingness at national level to try to tackle the Traveller accommodation problem, . . . the Office's experience in dealing with individual complaints at local level is that the political will to grapple with the problem is not as evident on the ground. (Ombudsman Office Annual Report 1997)

2.2 There was a promising change with the adoption of the 1998 Traveller Accommodation Act, which stated: . . .
A housing authority may provide, improve, manage and control sites for caravans used by persons to whom this section applies (persons who traditionally pursue or have pursued a nomadic way of life), including sites with limited facilities . . . (which) . . . have sufficient water, facilities for solid and liquid waste disposal and hard surface parking area for caravans.". (Extract from 1998 Traveller Accommodation Act, Section 13, paragraphs 1, 2 and 7.)

2.3 The Irish Government signed up to the UN Declaration on the World Conference against Racism 2001 to "guarantee the rights of persons belonging to national minorities, individually or in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture". The Declaration recognised that minorities are often among the most disadvantaged groups in society, their members often subject to discrimination and injustice and excluded from meaningful participation in public and political life. Specifically in relation to Travellers, the Government committed "to promote knowledge and respect for their culture and history." Cork County Council, along with the other local authorities, are at the centre of this commitment, as they are the only authorities with responsibility for this most central feature of Traveller welfare. It is reasonable to claim that a person’s potential for achieving a reasonable life depends more than any other thing else on having adequate accommodation.
2.4 The adoption of the 5-year Traveller Accommodation Programmes in early 2001 promised much, but the progress towards elimination of Traveller homelessness has been so bad that between 1998 and 2002, the number of families living on the roadside had actually increased, albeit by a small margin, to 1,200.


Status of Traveller families living on the roadside
Regardless of the reason why a Traveller family is living on the roadside, we submit that with the exception of categories (2) and (3) below, the families have nowhere they can go to live. These families are, by definition, in an extremely vulnerable situation. They are generally without a political voice, they are frequently ignorant of their rights, and suffer from the indignity of living without sanitation and other basic living requirements.

3. Experiences of roadside families
It is important that local authority officials and councillors understand what life is like for a Traveller family living on the roadside. In the period 2000 to 2004 (the duration of the last Traveller accommodation programme) the Traveller Visibility Group has recorded the following experiences of roadside families.
3.1 Harassment of roadside Travellers by a minority of members of An Garda Síochána, apparently as a means to get the families to move on. One Traveller whose wife was allegedly assaulted by a Garda felt so intimidated that he did not lodge a complaint.
3.2 Sixty lorry loads of earth were dumped around the caravans occupied by three related Traveller families at a roadside camp on the Mallow Road. One of the Travellers was a paralysed woman who depended on her adult sons to carry her to a local fast food restaurant to use the bathroom. A County Council official denied that they were involved, instead blaming Cork City Council, saying . . . They do as we do. We square them in and hope that they move off.
3.3 Local authority election candidates citing the removal or planned removal of roadside families as a campaign promise.
3.4 Harassment and racial abuse including obscene gestures, shouting in foul language, and late night car engine revving by passers by which has caused great distress, especially to families in which there are young children.
3.5 Old, disabled and sick members of roadside families having to urinate and defecate in the open air without even rudimentary physical aids.
3.6 Families with young children, babies, and pregnant women, parked adjacent to and immediately underneath high voltage wires, posing health risks, specifically childhood leukaemia.
3.7 Frequent medical problems presumed to be associated with roadside conditions including chest infection, coughs, sore throats, stress, depression, skin complaints.
3.8 A public health nurse so concerned that she would carry infection to the next family she visited, that she refused to visit a newborn baby on a roadside site.

4. Responsibility of Cork County Council
No just society would tolerate this treatment of its citizens. It is shameful that emergency accommodation provision is not already in place to prevent further occurrences of incidents such as these. There is no agency other than Cork County Council who could be identified as being the appropriate provider of this emergency accommodation. Indeed, it is relatively unchallenging to do so. All that is required is fairly flat land, even in small plots of a few dozen square metres, and the basic living requirements such as sanitation, a water supply, washing facilities, waste water disposal, and refuse collection.

5. Understanding differences between categories of roadside family
Since 2000, the year in which the previous Traveller Accommodation Programme started, the TVG has counted a total of 79 Traveller families living on the roadside for various periods of time. The majority of these families moved across the city / county boundary several times.
There is widespread lack of understanding about the composition of groups of roadside families. It is widely believed, for example, that the accommodation needs of roadside families can be addressed by the actions of the local authority acting alone. It is also apparent that most people see roadside families as forming one homogenous group. That is not the case. A simple examination of the different categories of roadside family suggests appropriate policy responses.

Category (1)
Homeless Travellers
A. Some Traveller families who were official tenants of Cork County Council or of another local authority in Ireland or the UK, left that accommodation apparently of their own free will. This is a contentious area, because local authority housing officials can only make decisions based on what they know. We have first hand knowledge of several cases where the family has not given full details to local authority staff, due to the shame of something that happened within their families. The examples which we have are related to marriage break up, internal family conflicts, certain illnesses, and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. The desire to protect the reputation of their families leaves local authority officials with inadequate knowledge of why certain families choose to leave permanent accommodation.
B. There are reasons for being homeless that are not connected with internal family matters. We know of families who accepted offers of standard accommodation against their better judgement, in areas where levels of crime, drugs use and intimidation were excessive. In some of these cases, local authority staff made promises that the families would be re-housed within a specified time. When families leave accommodation in circumstances like these, it is usually to protect the welfare of their younger children.
C. Families on the accommodation waiting list either of Cork County Council or Cork City Council have to wait for years in some instances for an offer of accommodation. During this waiting period they face a dilemma. If they stay in the area, they have nowhere to live and face eviction and criminal prosecution. If they leave the area they risk losing their place on the waiting list.

Policy observation
There is always a certain amount of movement of Traveller families who have been displaced by events not of their own making, including those who move in and out of the county while waiting for a permanent offer of accommodation. Because of this movement of families, the true level of economically driven nomadism is difficult to assess.
It appears that, regardless of the reason for living on the roadside, the level of provision nationally is hopelessly low, so it is not just a problem for Cork City Council or for Cork County Council. If one local authority can justify ignoring their needs, they all can, adding to the misery of the families. One local authority acting alone can not impact on this need. The risk is that there will be further displacement of families who will leave their traditional routes to escape the cycle of eviction and re-eviction from illegal encampments, to move to live in the few areas where emergency accommodation is provided by a small number of local authorities.


Category (2)
Travellers who visit Cork to trade
This category of Traveller family has maintained a highly nomadic lifestyle despite the fact that a growing number of them own permanent homes in Ireland and the UK.
Some of these families have been described in the media as having substantial wealth, and this has contributed to an assumption by a majority of the public that they are all comparatively wealthy.
This in turn, we believe, influences local authority officials and councillors to conclude that the families in this category are a lower priority than other categories of roadside family, and therefore provides a legitimate reason for doing nothing for these families.

Policy observation
This category of family has for years provided business to private caravan park owners in Cork and elsewhere. The last such park to close in the environs of Cork city was at Rathmacullaig East near Cork Airport (adjacent to Harlequins Hockey Club). When it closed about four years ago, there was a sharp rise in the roadside Traveller population in and near Cork. The occurrence of this rise was disguised by the fact that they moved frequently across the city / county area boundary line, occupying areas in Little Island, Glanmire, Ringaskiddy, Carrigaline, Ballincollig, and Lehenaghmore in the county areas, and Ballinure, Skehard Road, Monahan Road, Churchfield Road, Brocklesby Square, Connelly Road, Blackpool, and Mahon Point in the city. While not all in the high-income bracket, they are nomadic purely for economic reason. They identify and serve niche markets which are uneconomical to serve by sedentary businesses. It is in their interests to maintain good relationships with the cities and towns they visit, plus the fact that they want the home comforts like hot water, heating, showers, bathrooms, like anybody else. And they have the spending power to pay for these facilities. In the year 2000, for example, the weekly rate for a single bay was £40, and there was a substantial waiting list to get in there. It seems obvious that the local authority can cater to the needs of this category of roadside family by a commercial approach, and thereby reduce significantly the roadside population of families in Cork. It may be appropriate for the County Council and the City Council to collaborate in the provision of a number of small sites near the city, on both sides of the city boundary, to make the sites more easily managed, rather than develop one or two large sites.

Category (3)
Travellers who visit Cork on holidays
We submit that the only roadside families, for whom the local authority need make no direct provision of facilities, is those who visit Cork on holiday. However, even in this case, the local authority may have a role in liaison with tourism interests to address the absence of facilities for motor homes and caravan holiday makers. UK and continental tourists who choose this type of holiday are excluded from Cork by this absence of facilities.


Proposed specific actions by Cork County Council
1. Based on the foregoing, the Traveller Visibility Group submits that the Traveller accommodation programme 2005 to 2008 needs to include clear policies regarding the accommodation of roadside Travellers.
2. When homeless Traveller families live by the roadside, it is obviously not the most ideal situation, and one which the families would prefer not to be in. We submit that the local authority can successfully provide for this need on a short term basis (as the need is frequently short term anyway) by identifying a number of micro-sites ready for occupation at short notice, from within its own stock of property, and if necessary, rent additional property from other sources, including the private business sector, other state-funded bodies, voluntary bodies, and church authorities.
3. If Cork County Council intends to evict a roadside family, we submit that the local authority should first notify the Homeless Unit of the Southern Health Board in advance, to allow them the opportunity to make the necessary arrangements for their emergency accommodation. This is normally the practice for people being evicted from houses and flats. In the event of an eviction being carried out, we submit that it should be carried out at a time when homeless services run by the Southern Health Board are operating, i.e. during normal administrative working hours.
4. When Traveller families come to trade in Cork, their status is not much different to that of travelling circuses. We submit that they be afforded opportunities to live without the fear of eviction by renting commercial space to them at the going rate.
5. We submit that Cork County Council should be proactive in developing a dialogue with the Department of Environment and Local Government, and within the local authorities nationally to assist the local authorities in solving the most acute problems of Traveller homelessness, in particular by co-ordinating the development of appropriate emergency, short term and transient accommodation options. Apart from the resolution of this immediate need, it would almost certainly have a major impact on Travellers’ access to employment, healthcare and the general quality of life that is taken for granted by the majority settled population.
6. Cork County Councillors, most of them members of political parties, should act to try to prioritise Traveller rights on the agendas of local authorities across all departments, not just the housing section.
7. Councillors are recommended to inform themselves of the concerns and recommendations of local Traveller organisations in the run up to the adoption of Traveller accommodation programmes for the next 4 years;
8. Councillors should, we submit, be proactive in local communities by challenging discrimination against Travellers, and by refusing to accept stereotyped claims made against Travellers.



David McCarthy
Outreach Worker
Traveller Visibility Group
24 September 2004

Appendix I: Glossary


Roadside families: Travellers who live for any period anywhere in the county areas adjacent to Cork city in caravans, trailers or motor homes other than as an official tenant of Cork County Council on an official halting site. The definition of roadside family in this submission is not affected by any particular family’s access to permanent accommodation in another county or jurisdiction.

Eviction: (A) Forced removal from a roadside site using the Anti-Trespass legislation under the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 as inserted by the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2002. (B) Threat, fear or anticipation of forced removal as above.





Appendix II: Extract from the 1998 Traveller Accommodation Act

HOUSING (TRAVELLER ACCOMMODATION) ACT 1998 - SECT 29
Amendment of section 13 of Act of 1988.

29.—Section 13 of the Act of 1988 is hereby amended by the
substitution of the following section for section 13:

"Provision of sites for caravans.

13.—(1) This section applies to persons belonging to the class of
persons who traditionally pursue or have pursued a nomadic way of
life.

(2) A housing authority may provide, improve, manage and control
sites for caravans used by persons to whom this section applies,
including sites with limited facilities for the use by such persons
otherwise than as their normal place of residence or pending the
provision of permanent accommodation under an accommodation programme
within the meaning of section 7 of the Housing (Traveller
Accommodation) Act, 1998, and may carry out any works incidental to
such provision, improvement, management or control, including the
provision of services for such sites.

(3) Section 56(2) of the Principal Act shall apply in connection
with the provision of sites under this section as it applies in
connection with the provision of dwellings under that section.

(4) A housing authority may, in respect of the use of a site
provided by them under this section or of any service or facilities
provided or made available in connection with such a site, make
such charges as the housing authority see fit.

(5) Any charge due to a housing authority under subsection (4)
shall be recoverable by them as a simple contract debt in a court
of competent jurisdiction.

(6) The Minister may issue guidelines for the purpose of this
section and a housing authority shall have regard to any such
guidelines.

(7) In this section—

'caravan' means any structure designed or adapted for human
habitation which is capable of being moved from one place to
another, whether by towing or transport on a vehicle or trailer,
and includes a motor vehicle so designed or adapted and a mobile
home, but does not include a tent;

'sites with limited facilities' means sites which, having regard to
the temporary nature of such sites or the short duration of periods
of use, have sufficient water, facilities for solid and liquid waste
disposal and hard surface parking area for caravans.".