Travellers at Kilbarry: ‘We’re hardly even existing here’

Thomas O'Reilly, his wife Tina and their five children, aged between 18 months and 12 years old, share the single bedroom in their small house at a Traveller housing scheme, in Kilbarry, Waterford city.

“Tina and myself sleep there,” says Thomas, pointing to a double bed on one side of the room.

On the other, a second double bed is shared by Margaret (7), Shanice (3), Michael (12) and Thomas (10). Billy (18 months) sleeps in a cot.

“I was making up a bed for Thomas on the floor,” he says, “but we can’t let him sleep on the floor in the winter, it’s too cold.”

Less than 60cm beyond the bedroom windows, a 4m concrete wall blocks the light, making the room dark and cold.

Green mould extends across the ceiling and down the walls. Paint is peeling from the walls and the skirting boards are rotting. Clothes in the two wardrobes are damp.

The bathroom too is damaged by damp. Tiles are broken on the walls, which are scarred with mildew, and spots of mould frame the windows.

More worrying, says Thomas, is the way the windows are impeded by the concrete wall.

They do not open fully, and when partially open they block the exit out of the narrow passage between the house and the wall.

Fire

“Can you imagine opening and closing the window each time you’re trying to lift a child out, if there was a fire? We are very worried now after what happened to those children in Dublin.”

There is no back door; the front door opens into the hall, blocking clear passage down the hall.

Among their neighbours are Margaret and John O’Reilly and their three children, Nona (2), Chantelle (5) and John (7).

They moved out of their house in the same scheme five months ago because of the damp and and have been living in a one-bedroom caravan beside it.

The smell of damp in the house they vacated is overpowering. Paint is peeling, dark green mould surrounds windows, mildew extends around the walls, tiles are broken and skirting boards are rotting.

“The children were constantly getting infections. No matter how many times you washed clothes you couldn’t get the smell of damp out,” says, Margaret, who is four months’ pregnant.

In the caravan, the couple share a bed and the children share another. Tiny cupboards are stuffed with clothes. The toilet is filled with baby equipment and bed linen. Heating comes from an electric bar heater.

Nona and Chantelle have paediatric osteoporosis; Nona requiring a specialised high-chair and standing equipment which can no longer be used because there is no space.

“I do worry about their health and their future and what way they are going to grow up,” says Margaret. “John asks why is he still sleeping with the girls. I tell him, ‘We have no choice son, We just have to wait for the council.’ ”

The families are among 12, in two extended families, living on the site. Kilbarry is a permanent group housing site, built and managed by Waterford City and County Council on the southwest of the city.

The site is a large field in which several horses graze. The tarred roadway is potholed and broken, with pools of water along it.

Travellers have lived here for more than 30 years, most of the time in vans. Tigíns with basic facilities were built on the site in the 1970s.

From the late 1990s, an influx of families to the site caused a variety of problems with overcrowding and antisocial behaviour.

By the mid-2000s it housed up to 40 families.

Mass eviction

In September 2007, in a controversial mass eviction by the council, more than 30 families were moved off.

This resulted in homelessness among many of them at the time, but it also resulted in the current family mix, which the Waterford Traveller Community Development Project describes as “long-term and well settled”.

The current 12 houses were built in 2000, costing €1.5 million, and have been refurbished since.

Residents question the quality of the work, given the extensive problems with damp.

Plans for landscaping and a community building, set out in the Traveller Accommodation Plan 2000-2004, were not completed.

The council said this was due to “a variety of reasons” including “extensive vandalism and malicious damage to the site” and “ongoing management and maintenance” issues.

The 2005-2008 programme said the council would “engage with the residents of Kilbarry and agree on a way forward . . . and develop solutions to the very real problems experienced by the residents” of the site.

The 2009-2013 plan said the houses would be demolished and two six-house schemes developed.

These plans were “awaiting approval from the Department of the Environment”.

The 2014-2018 plan said: “It was proposed in the Traveller Accommodation Programme 2009-2013 to redesign Kilbarry and create a 12-house group housing scheme.

“However, due to an unprecedented decline in funding available from the National Capital Programme the scheme was not approved.”

There is no plan in the current programme to redevelop the site.

A spokesman for the council said in the wake of the Carrickmines tragedy, in which 10 people died on a halting site in Dublin last month, a fire safety audit of all sites in Waterford was under way.

“All recommendations of the chief fire officer are being, and will be, complied with.”

Each house at Kilbarry had a smoke alarm and fire-extinguisher, he said.

Thomas O’Reilly says his family would go somewhere better, if they could go together.

“But we have nowhere else to go. We’d like something proper, for the children. We’re hardly even existing here.”