Clare County Council has reduced the number of Traveller families living on the roadside in the county to 14 after spending over €12 million on its Traveller accommodation programme during the past four years.
The 80 per cent drop in Traveller families living on the roadside is reported in the council's latest Traveller census.
The local authority is currently constructing two emergency sites in Ennis and Ennistymon and expects to have no Traveller families living by the roadside without sanitation by the end of next year.
At the outset of the council's Traveller Accommodation Programme in 2000, the number of families living on the roadside and without any sanitation stood at 61.
The crisis was sparked by the closure of the Drumcliffe halting site outside Ennis in 1997, which left a large number of Traveller families homeless.
This resulted in widespread illegal parking by Travellers, often beside schools, at the headquarters of both the county council and Ennis Town Council and at one stage on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital.
However, the council has now provided a necklace of sites around Clare giving accommodation for 53 families.
It has spent €775,000 on court cases, while the 24-hour security spend on one emergency site in Ennis has cost over €200,000 since March 2002.
