LOCAL authorities should be obliged to seek planning permission for travellers' halting sites, a report published by the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin recommends.
Opposition to halting sites is by no means as implacable as it is portrayed, says the report prepared for Crosscare, the archdiocese's social service body. It says it is not true that halting sites lower property values in the surrounding areas. Priests could do more to promote the development of halting sites in their parishes, it says.
The exemption of halting sites from the planning process "seems to have made it more difficult for the local authority to develop halting sites and has allowed objections to be entertained which, in the case of any other development, might be overruled as either irrelevant or malicious," the report says.
Obliging local authorities to seek planning permission for halting sites would provide "a way of protecting the interests of all parties both travelling people and settled people in accordance with law".
"Worries about adverse effects on property values can be handled by imposing appropriate conditions on the development of halting sites which, other things being equal, serve as a balance between the different interests involved."
The same level of opposition from residents' associations has preceded halting sites which were eventually built as well as those which were cancelled, the report says. This "implies that their blanket opposition to all halting sites may be less influential than is sometimes believed".
In a survey carried out for the report, "the majority who live in the same area as travelling people experienced no difficulties from travelling people and, of those who did, none reported falling property values as one of the difficulties."
"Moreover the vast majority of those who moved into areas where there are travelling people indicated that the presence of travelling people made no difference to them, thus suggesting that when halting sites are built they do not have a significant impact on the residential property market."
The survey, of 600 settled people, found that 15 per cent had a decidedly negative attitude to travellers, 13 per cent had a positive attitude and 72 per cent were ambivalent.
These attitudes "can be built upon in order to gain acceptance and support for halting sites this, however, is dependent upon developing models of halting sites which meet the needs of travelling people and reduce the negative impacts of unofficial halting sites on the settled population.
The report notes that in the past 10 years in the Dublin County Council area, despite the stated willingness of religious orders to provide sites for this purpose, no site has yet been developed on their land." Religious orders have sought written guarantees that sites "will be developed and managed in the best interests of both travelling people and settled persons," it says.
"This is not acceptable to the local authority. The grounds they give is that breach of these conditions by persons other than the local authority could result in the lease being rescinded and the consequent loss of the site."
The report, Accommodating Travelling People A Study of Accommodation for Travelling People in the greater Dublin area, was prepared for Crosscare by two social researchers, Mr Kieran McKeown and Ms Brid McGrath.