Empty halting site costing €6,000 a week
The halting site, at Castletroy, was completed last January but seven Traveller families for whom it was built, won’t move in because there are no stables for their horses.
A spokeswoman for Limerick County Council said yesterday they have to provide 24/7 security while the halting site remains unoccupied.
She said: “Talks are ongoing and we are trying to bring this situation to a successful conclusion.”
Traveller spokesperson, Bridget Casey said stabling was important to the travellers’ way of life.
However, Minister of State Tim O’Malley said: “Traveller support groups live in a fantasy world of entitlements and rights with no obligations whatsoever.”
Mr O’Malley said it was time Ms Casey and her colleagues in “other like-minded and publicly-funded traveller advocacy groups” started to deal with the central issues causing the tension in the relationship between the travelling community and their neighbours.
Mr O’Malley said: “I will not accept a situation where any criticism of the behaviour of certain travellers can be waved away by branding that criticism “racist” or, implying that the person making those complaints is racist. I utterly reject that tactic and I sincerely hope that someday the traveller support groups who employ that disgraceful method will realise how cheap, unfair and counterproductive it is.”
He said he does not care if a person wants to live in a caravan any more than he cares whether a person wants to live in a cave, in a semi-detached, or up a tree.
Mr O’Malley said: “What I do care about is where someone wants to live in a manner that they claim to be an expression of their own culture, but which infringes in a grossly unfair way on their neighbours. The example is a group who live a lifestyle that makes toilet arrangements very difficult, but who evidently see nothing wrong with using their settled neighbours’ gardens and sheds as their toilet facilities.”
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