Good-quality accommodation for Traveller families reduces hostility from settled people and does not have any adverse effects on house prices, a seminar on Traveller accommodation was told this week.
Ms Grainne O'Toole of the Irish Traveller Movement said the delay in providing accommodation was contributing to "the ever-increasing tension" between Travellers and settled people. She was speaking at a seminar in Letterkenny on Wednesday.
Where there is a lack of proper accommodation, settled people only see unserviced roadside halting sites.
"Experience has shown that opposition usually falls away once a site of good standard is put in," she said. The provision of good-quality accommodation also resulted in Travellers' health improving and in them playing a more active role in the community and in educational programmes.
She said that a quarter of Traveller families in Ireland are living without access to water, toilets and refuse collection. The 1995 report of the Task Force on the Travelling Community recommended that 2,200 families be accommodated on halting sites by 2000. Of these only 111 units have been provided.
There has been more success with standard and group housing accommodation, where 839 out of the recommended 900 houses have been provided over the past six years.
She said the poor living conditions were having a direct effect on life expectancy. Only five per cent of Travellers are over 50 years old and just two per cent are over 65.
The seminar, which was organised by Citizen Traveller, was aimed at drawing attention to good-quality Traveller accommodation. Architect Mr Michael Swanton from Donegal County Council gave a presentation on a group housing scheme currently under construction at Canal Road in Letterkenny.
He said there had been a consultation process involving the Traveller families, the architects and the council's social worker, and this was ongoing as the 10 houses were being built. Families will be able to bring their caravans on to the site.
The development, which represents a new departure for Donegal County Council has been praised by Traveller organisations. Mr Swanton said it should be a model for all future Traveller accommodation. No other such group schemes are being planned at the moment but temporary halting sites were being provided by the council.
Ms O'Toole said local authorities appeared to have less difficulty provided standard and group housing than halting sites. But the largest group of Travellers wanted good-quality sites, with the second most popular option being group housing.
She said the local authority with the best record was Meath County Council, where there were now very few Travellers on the roadside, while Longford County Council was probably the worst as it hadn't even a Traveller accommodation programme.