A report to Sligo County Council on the progress made in implementing its Traveller accommodation programme has been described as "a major disappointment" by the Labour Party's Mr Declan Bree.
He said it was obvious that "little or no progress" had been made since the programme was adopted by the council in March of last year. No formal proposals for the provision of accommodation had yet been brought before the council, he said.
Questions have also been raised about the number of meetings held by the local Traveller consultative committee.
County councils were required to set up these committees under the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act of 1998. In Sligo the committee is a joint one for both the council and corporation.
Mr Bree, who is not a member of the committee, said he would be asking to see the minutes of meetings.
A spokesman for the two local authorities confirmed there was an eight-month gap when no meetings were held. The committee met once in July of last year and once in August, but did not meet again until the last week of May this year. Two meetings were held in June.
A Traveller representative on the committee, Mr Paddy Sweeney, said there had been more activity in the past few weeks than in the previous 15 months when the people involved had "hibernated".
Mr Sweeney said he believed the recent meetings were called only because of pressure from Travellers and some local representatives.
The council spokesman said that in the period when no meetings were being held staff from both local authorities had been visiting and assessing potential sites.
He said staff felt there was little point in convening a meeting until they had recommendations to make.
The Traveller accommodation programme for Sligo for five years up to 2004 identified a need for 44 units of accommodation.
It said there was a need for two new halting sites in the corporation area and two in the county council area for indigenous Travellers. Transient sites were also needed in Sligo town and in south Co Sligo.
This week's report to the county council, amounting to nine paragraphs of text in total, says that outline proposals for three sites in the county had been considered.
Two of these, in Ballisodare and Cloonamahon, the report states, were agreed to be suitable for transient Travellers or traders or the overload from existing sites.
The spokesman said one of these might be reserved for transients, but the choice of site will lie with the indigenous Travellers. The third site being considered is in Tubbercurry, and the report says a recent assessment had shown "a sharp increase" in the number of families in the area.
The committee had also considered a proposed house design to meet the needs of Traveller families, and the report states the committee will meet again before the end of this month to consider a proposal for a site in north Sligo and "more detailed proposals for the various sites already selected which will emerge from the consultation process".
A draft Traveller accommodation programme to include specific sites and accommodation types is promised, but no date is given for this. The spokesman said three sites had been identified in the corporation area, and these would be outlined to elected members at a meeting next Monday.
Mr Bree said he was told it would be October at the earliest before formal proposals would be put before the council. One of the sites being proposed had been talked about for 15 years, he said. "The bottom line is that there are still no formal proposals."
Mr Sweeney said that while these delays continued the number of Traveller families requiring accommodation was increasing and the conditions they were living in were deteriorating. Two permanent sites in Sligo town were both very overcrowded, he said.
Health concerns have also been raised about a transient halting site at Finisklin on the outskirts of Sligo town.
A report by an environmental health officer with the North Western Health Board, who visited the site at the request of one of the families, pointed out that while it is supposed to be a transient site, families had been there from between six months and two years.
The site is beside an ESB sub-station and families were concerned this was affecting the health of people, particularly pregnant women, living on the site. The environmental health officer recommended further study to look into this possibility.
She also recommended remedial works in the kitchen/ bathroom units, including the provision of heating to alleviate dampness, and that a malfunctioning fire hose be repaired or replaced.
She recommended that "suitable alternative accommodation be found for the residents of the halting sites".
Mr Sweeney said the families at Finisklin believed it was a "health hazard" and that they could now be there for four years instead of six months as they had been told.