Clare County Council yesterday invoked special powers allowing it to bypass the planning process to put in place a €3 million emergency halting site to solve Ennis's long-running Traveller accommodation crisis.
The council yesterday announced that work on a site to accommodate 16 Traveller families is to begin immediately following the county manager, Mr Alec Fleming, signing the emergency order allowing work to start.
The site for the 16 units is 1½ miles from Ennis and is close to an industrial estate.
The €3 million budget for the site brings the amount the council has spent on its Traveller accommodation programme in the last four years to €14 million. During that time, the council has provided accommodation for 66 Traveller families, with the most recent council census recording that there are 34 Traveller families living on the roadside.
The council's director of service for housing, Mr Tom Coughlan, said yesterday the families that will be catered for are currently living on the roadside and there is particular concern for the children living in such conditions.
He said the site will take six months to construct. "So unfortunately, it won't address the conditions they will face over this winter," he said.
The last time the council enacted similar powers in April 2000, a High Court injunction taken out by local residents prevented the site from opening for a further two years on the northern side of Ennis.
As a result of the court action, the council was left with a legal bill of over €200,000, while a condition of the High Court settlement order that the council provide 24-hour security at the site has cost the council over €220,000.
Mr Coughlan said the provision of the halting site should address the number of Traveller families living on the roadside around Ennis.
"This emergency has existed for a long time but it is only now that the council has been able to acquire the land to allow us develop the site."
Mr Coughlan said that the cost of the site is €800,000 and confirmed that the council is looking to establish a second emergency site elsewhere in Clare to cater for the other Travellers living on the roadside.
Mr Coughlan added that when the emergency is addressed through the provision of permanent halting sites elsewhere in Ennis, the emergency site would provide permanent units for Travellers.
Mr Martin Collins of the Traveller-rights based organisation Pavee Point welcomed the move yesterday.
"I would hope that the council is not providing sub-standard accommodation in reacting to this crisis, but with the €3 million being spent on the project, I hope that it will be a state-of-the-art facility."
