€400,000 annual spend on Traveller accommodation

CLARE County Council shouldn’t provide any more Traveller accommodation until all existing unoccupied dwellings and halting sites are fully utilised, according to a local councillor.

Councillor James Breen has also expressed concern about the expenditure of €391,000 on maintaining and staffing Traveller accommodation in Ennis and its environs, Ennistymon and Shannon in 2009.
The independent councillor called on the council to replace missing roof tiles on two houses at the Ballymaley halting site, which he claimed hadn’t been replaced in 18 months.
He said the delay in replacing these tiles would have caused a lot of internal water damage, which could easily have been avoided.
He recently tabled a motion at a council meeting requesting a report on the amount of money spent on Traveller accommodation in 2009, the individual cost of maintaining the different halting sites and what damage has been caused to the houses with the missing tiles in the Ballymaley site.
The council confirmed it had 50 houses and 15 lettable bays throughout the county and at the time, its records showed it had spent €174,000 on maintenance, €208,000 on caretaker wages and €9,000 on emergency works.
However, the council also acknowledged that the final actual expenditure may be different from the overall €462,000 Budget Estimate, as three of the new sites opened later than expected during the year.
In Ennis and its environs, the council spent €30,000 looking after six houses on the Watery Road and the same amount on two occupied bays at Ballaghboy, Quin Road. A sum of €18,000 was spent on maintaining six houses in Ashline; €10,000 on three houses and three bays in Beechpark; €9,000 for six houses at Ballaghafadda, Kildysart Road; €7,000 for looking after two houses and four bays at Ballymaley and €3,000 for six houses at Knockanean, Tulla Road.
In the Ennistymon area, the local authority spent €30,000 on nine temporary vacated bays at Ballymacraven; €14,000 on six houses at St John’s Park, Deerpark and €2,000 looking after six houses at Glen North.
The cost of maintaining three houses in six bays at Ballymurtagh, Shannon totalled €21,000.