Travellers who reject houses, have to be accommodated writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent.
The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act of 1998 was meant to provide for the housing needs of members of the Travelling community. Eight years later, thousands of Travellers are still living on the side of the road, or in temproary halting sites. The Act requires housing authorities, usually local authorities, to provide for Travellers "who traditionally pursue or who have pursued a nomadic way of life."
This is spelt out as providing, improving, managing and controlling sites for caravans, along with water, sewerage facilities and electricity. However, very few serviced halting sites have been built in the intervening years. According to Martin Collins of the Irish Traveller Movement (ITM), local authorities appear to offer accommodation in local authority houses instead.
Such houses are acceptable to some Travellers, but not all. Some find it impossible to adapt to living in a house or flat, away from other family members, with little or no access to the open air.
This was the situation of the O'Reilly and Conway families, who were offered a first-floor apartment and a town house opening directly on to a street by the county council. They both tried living in them, but found it impossible, and returned to live on the side of the road.
When Limerick County Council made it clear it was evicting them from there, they took the judicial review proceedings that ended in yesterday's judgment.
According to Mr Justice MacMenamin, the 1998 Act "must be interpreted with the 'needs' of the person . . . as the primary starting point." The clear needs of the applicants were for halting site accommodation. An existing site in Kilmallock is full. "There is no espoused intention or objective to provide for an alternative site," he said.
"Can it be said then that the respondent has specified the provision of accommodation required to address the applicants' needs? In the light of the evidence, regrettably the contrary is the case."
The county council had claimed that, because the families had left the houses they had been allocated, they could not be considered "homeless" for the purpose of the housing Acts. This argument was rejected by the court.
By failing to provide halting site accommodation for the O'Reilly and Conway families, Limerick County Council had failed to comply with its statutory duty under the 1998 Act, it found.
This has far-reaching implications for other local authorities around the country, many of which have made little provision for new serviced halting sites. This ruling, which may be appealed to the Supreme Court, has been welcomed by the ITM.
"Local authorities can no longer fudge their responsibilities," according to Martin Collins. "There seems to be a trend for local authorities not to build Traveller-specific accommodation, and instead just to offer houses. So this is a very significant judgment."