Seven months after Clare County Council announced the end of its Traveller accommodation crisis, new figures show that there are 15 Traveller families living on the roadside without basic facilities.
Last May the council announced that all Clare Traveller families had been provided with accommodation and that no family was any longer living on the roadside.
In a bid to resolve a Traveller accommodation crisis, the council had built eight halting sites at Ennis, Shannon and Ennistymon over the previous nine years. These accommodated 66 families at a cost of €14.76 million, or €223,646 to house each family.
The ending of Travellers living on the roadside without running water and toilet facilities was described last May as "a major achievement" by the council.
However, the latest Traveller census drawn up by the council's Traveller accommodation unit shows that out of 188 Traveller families, 15 are now living on the roadside without sanitation.
The figures show that 11 of the families have applied for accommodation from the council, while four families have not applied.
Fine Gael Cllr Joe Arkins, chairman of the council's special policy committee for housing, claimed that for many of the Traveller families living on the roadside, it was a lifestyle choice to remain there.
Mr Arkins said that a number of the families living on the roadside had been offered accommodation by the council at emergency sites at Ennistymon and Ennis but had turned the offers down.
"The council is charged with the responsibility of looking after Clare's own indigenous Travellers and a lot of progress has been made in the past year, but the council is not in the business of being a tour operator where it will cater for Travellers from other counties," he said.
Cllr Arkins claimed that if the council was to take the lead and provide a transient site, it would result in all the country's Travellers living on the roadside coming to Clare.
"This issue should be dealt with at a national level. The council's duty and responsibility is to indigenous Clare families and it discharges those duties," he said.
The council census figures show that there are currently 123 Traveller families living as tenants and of those 38 are in standard letting, 30 are in local authority group housing and 28 have acquired homes with the aid of the local authority.
The council estimates that only two Traveller families have acquired homes without the assistance of the council.
The figures also show that an estimated 17 Traveller families are living in private rented accommodation.
The figures also show that 34 families are living in halting sites with 23 of those in emergency halting sites pending permanent accommodation.
