If local authorities were to have any success in providing accommodation for Travellers, there was going to have to be a huge change in attitude from a wide variety of people, a conference on Traveller accommodation was told yesterday.
Addressing delegates at a seminar on the issue at Bunratty, Co Clare, the Clare county manager, Mr Willie Moloney, said frustration among city and county managers trying to provide suitable accommodation for Travellers was very real and very demoralising when the public impression was being created that they were doing nothing about the problem.
Mr Moloney said: "The Minister and his Department officials will have to realise that passing legislation and sending out carefully worded catch-all circulars will not in themselves provide any accommodation.
"There must be a better understanding of the practical difficulties of implementing the programme on the ground."
Outlining his own experiences, Mr Moloney told the conference that he was the subject of a death threat when the council was seeking to develop a halting site outside Ennis in 1996. Last year he and his wife had their tyres slashed outside their home in connection with council plans to install a separate halting site.
Due to the absence of a serviced halting site in Ennis since 1997, there has been an unauthorised Traveller site in the Clare County Council's carpark since last April.
Mr Moloney said Travellers and their supporters would have to display a greater willingness to accept their responsibilities, as well as demanding their rights. He said: "They could do this by behaving in a manner which would convince the settled community that Travellers can be welcomed into the community as good neighbours."
Mr Moloney also called on the settled community to display greater tolerance. He said the judiciary would have to show greater consistency and urgency in dealing with cases crucial to the local authorities in achieving their objectives.
He told delegates that councillors would have to show more support for specific projects in the face of local opposition.
Speaking earlier, the Minister of State for Housing, Mr Robert Molloy, called on local authorities to implement their Traveller accommodation programmes to ensure the 1,200 families living on the roadside would be accommodated. He said if every authority implemented its accommodation plan, "we can eliminate this dreadful need that has not been met for so many years".
Mr Molloy expressed his disappointment that money provided in annual estimates had not always been used, because there were not sufficient plans put forward from the local authorities.
