Homeless Travellers in Ennis have stepped up their dispute with the local authorities and yesterday established an illegal halting site on the grounds of Clare County Council's proposed new €33 million headquarters.
The six Traveller families established the site after moving off the front lawn of the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, late last week.
With no permanent, serviced halting site due to be operational in Ennis until early next year, the Travellers moved on to the grounds of the recently-closed Our Lady's Psychiatric Hospital.
The council has purchased the hospital in a deal involving the Mid-Western Health Board and Shannon Development. The regional development agency has obtained planning permission to develop a €150 million technology park on the former hospital grounds.
Last week, the council lodged plans to transform the hospital into the new council administrative headquarters at a cost of €33 million. The hospital closed its doors earlier this year after a dispersal programme involving 190 patients.
The move by the families is the second in the long-running accommodation crisis in which Travellers have brought their dispute to the doorstep of the council.
During 2000, a number of Traveller families parked their caravans on the reserved car spaces for the county manager and council chairman in the council car park. As a result, the council spent €128,000 in 2000 on security costs to prevent more Travellers moving on to its car park.
The Travellers yesterday issued an open letter to the county manager, Mr Alec Fleming, urging him to provide the necessary sanitary and refuse facilities for the families at the site. The letter states: "We don't want to be upsetting the people of Ennis. We don't want to be pulling up outside their doorsteps or in car parks or anything like that, but we're Travellers from Ennis and want to stay here like everybody else.
"We are doing our best not to cause harm to anyone or anything by coming to Our Lady's Hospital and we will set the caravans in the spaces away from the businesses and the houses.
"If anyone can tell us of any other place that is safe and that we will be allowed to go to, we will move there immediately."
In response, a council spokesman said yesterday that it was considering the request for facilities to be provided at the site.
The spokesman said that a number of the Traveller families concerned have refused to engage with the council over its Traveller Accommodation Programme.
He said that a number of the families were from the Ennistymon area and that the programme made provision for those families in that area, which lies 20 miles north of Ennis.
The spokesman said that work was expected to start on a halting site in Ennistymon before the end of the year, while a new permanent site would be opened in Ennis early next year.
