VIDEO: SF deputy leader is ‘deeply ashamed’ of Cork Travellers’ living conditions

Sweeping reforms which will overhaul the way the authorities in Cork interact with the Traveller community have been finalised.

Junior minister Kathleen Lynch confirmed last night that the package of measures, prepared by former south Co Dublin manager Joe Horan, were completed yesterday following five months of research and interviews.

The announcement came just hours after Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said she has seen better conditions in prisons following her visit to the overcrowded Spring Lane halting site on the city’s northside.

The protracted problems at this site prompted Ms Lynch to invite Mr Horan earlier this year to prepare a major report on the wider Traveller accommodation issues in Cork.

His new plan provides a “structured and time-framed” blueprint that will result in a series of systemic changes to how agencies such as the city council, the HSE, and the Cork Education and Training Board interact with the Traveller community, Ms Lynch said.

“This is a huge new strategic plan for how we deal with the Travelling community into the future,” Ms Lynch said.

“It’s about putting the right people in the right places to ensure that we are listening.

“What we were doing clearly wasn’t working. We do need to take a different approach.”

The plan must first be signed off by a reconvened inter-agency consultative group, which was abandoned last year. It is hoped the plan will come before city council in September.

Ms Lynch said investment was never the issue.

A city council spokes-man confirmed that it has applied to the Department of the Environment for €1m in funding to carry out a range of emergency and improvement work.

“As outlined in the Traveller Accommodation Programme 2014-2018, the council will be looking at formulating an accommodation plan in the medium- to long-term to address the difficulties on the Spring Lane halting site,” the spokesman said.

Earlier, Ms McDonald said the conditions at the site at Ballyvolane, on the north side of Cork City, are unacceptable.

“I feel deeply ashamed that, in my country and this city of Cork, that some of our citizens are asked to live in these conditions,” she said. “It’s deeply shameful for all of us.”.

Residents, who pay rent to Cork City Council, showed her appalling conditions — faulty electrics, inadequate sanitary facilities, cracked roads, and pavements. Several caravans are located under a steep, unstable cliff.

“I have two children and I would struggle badly to raise my children in these circumstances,” said Ms McDonald.

“People need to be decent with each other, fair to each other, and respect each other’s basic human rights. We’re all born equal, we have to live equally.”

She was accompanied by Sinn Féin Cork East TD, Sandra McClellan and the party’s city councillors, Thomas Gould and Mick Nugent.

Ms McClellan said she would raise the plight of residents in the Dáil.

The site was developed in the late 1980s for 10 families. Today, it is home to 34 families — 56 adults and 92 children.

Later, Ms McDonald launched Rings of Hope, a resource book on domestic violence, written and designed by and for Traveller women, for the Southern Traveller Health Network.