Agencies under fire for response to halting site conditions

A parish priest has criticised statutory agencies for failing to act on a report carried out over four years, which highlighted appalling living conditions for children at a Limerick City halting site.

The report was commissioned in 2011 after repeated approaches to Fr Pat Hogan of the Holy Family Parish in Southill from mothers of children living at Clonlong halting site, where 30% of the children were being treated for asthma.

After visiting the halting sites during the freezing winters of 2009 and 2010, Fr Hogan said he witnessed the implications for people living in holiday caravans in extreme cold.