Waterford City Council said yesterday it was working with the 11 Traveller families it evicted last week to find a solution to their housing needs.
The families were evicted from the troubled Kilbarry halting site on Friday, on the grounds they were not authorised to stay there. The eviction was heavily criticised by the Pavee Point Travellers's Centre and the Waterford Traveller Community Development Project (WTCDP).
The WTCDP described the eviction as a "blatant breach of human rights" and said the evictees included a two-week-old baby with a congenital blood disorder, a pregnant woman and a two-year-old child with one kidney.
There were several violent episodes at the site in recent weeks and, at the weekend, Patrick O'Reilly, from Fortunestown Crescent, Tallaght, in Dublin, was charged with carrying a firearm with criminal intent to cause serious harm at the site on August 29th.
The WTCDP said it had confirmed none of the evicted families "had any role in the violence that occurred during the last week of August, and would state that, in any case, it is not the role of any local authority to visit collective punishment on communities for the criminal actions of a minority".
Martin Collins of Pavee Point urged the council "to reach an equitable and just solution to the accommodation needs of these families". He said the mass eviction was in no one's interest.
