Call for Travellers to rejoin forum - Ireland

From the Cork Independent

The Spring Lane community forum should be re-established in order to bring residential concerns at a halting site in Ballyvolane to a resolution, claimed two councillors this week.

Cllrs Patricia Gosch and Catherine Clancy were speaking in the context of a wider debate on housing this week at city council but described the halting site, known as Ellis’s Yard, and urged the forum to be re-established after it collapsed earlier this year.

"This is a blight on Cork City Council, the way it has conducted itself with regard to the halting site,” said Ms Gosch.

“The travelling community is not an independent republic. It is a part of the community and it must act as a part of the community. However there is no place for horses within the city boundaries, which is what we are seeing up around this area.”

Ms Gosch stated that the travelling community needs to learn to “live in the community that they are part of.”

“We do have a duty of care towards the travelling community also. The sanitary conditions in the site, even during the Celtic Tiger, are appalling.

“We have failed the travelling community but we must find a common ground with all of the residents in the Ballyvolane area on this.”

Cllr Catherine Clancy urged the need to speak directly to Travellers, rather than engaging exclusively with advocacy groups.

"Advocacy group are well and good, and do serve a purpose,” said Ms Clancy

“However, we need to sit down with the people themselves as the previous way did not work. We need residents to come around the table and decide what is best.”

Ms Clancy described it as “outrageous” that advocacy groups pulled out of the forum and collapsed its work, which underpinned the need to have travellers themselves involved in the forum.

Accommodation

The site was initially designed to accommodate 10 families in 10 bays but in recent years an additional 23 family units have established themselves in the area.

There are limited toilet and sanitation facilities for the extra 23 units

A health and safety review is expected to be undertaken at the site over the next few weeks along with other recommendations after a public consultation process.

Speaking to the Cork Independent last year, one Traveller who lived in the halting site described it as like living in the “third world.”

“The whole place should just be bulldozed and the whole thing knocked down,” said the man who wished to remain nameless

“All they (Cork City Council) are worried about is the outsiders here because they are illegally parked. It was only supposed to be a temporary site 23 years ago, they said it would only take a couple of years before we would be housed.”

Attempts to speak with advocacy groups were unsuccessful at the time of going to print.