SQUALID conditions at a rat infested site in west Tallaght are preventing more than 30 travelling children from attending local schools.
Parents of the children, who enrolled them yesterday at a number of schools in the Killinarden area, say they are without water and toilet facilities and cannot adequately prepare their children for school.
Some of those living on the Killinarden Hill site say they have developed infections and health problems due to the lack of sanitation.
South Dublin County Council has said that the site is private property and it is prohibited from installing sanitation facilities for the 15 or more families encamped there.
Mr Andy Doogue, development officer with the Catholic Youth Council, said the site was a health hazard and that the council had a responsibility to provide basic facilities for travellers in the area. An adjoining council owned site, previously earmarked for a temporary halting site for 15 families, should now be developed, he said.
"They are literally living in squalor. There is no traveller site in the whole of the country like this. The roadway leading up to where they are living is impassable with rubbish. There is no skip, no toilet and no water supply.
"The kids can get into school, but they would just be filthy before they got to the end of the road and the mini bus can't gain access to the site because it is surrounded with clay mounds."
Mr Ned Cash, who has eight children aged between 17 and two, said he had to fetch 10 gallons of water at a time from a nearby garage, as there was no tap at the site.
Although some of his children had recently attended schools, he could not send them at present due to the conditions.
"The other kids at the school would be looking at them scruffy and dirty. What we are looking for is for a barrier at the gate to stop lorries dumping rubbish, some skips and a water supply," he said.
Ms Alice Connors, who has lived in the Tallaght area for 30 years, said the dumping of industrial and other rubbish on the site by trucks posed a major health risk.
She expressed particular concern for the health of her 21 year old son who suffers from spina bifida and was recently admitted to Cappagh Hospital.
People living on the site were forced to go to the toilet on the nearby waste ground, which was infested with rats at night, she said.
Places have been provided by the Department of Education at a number of schools for 30 primary and six pre school children from the site in Jobstown, where they have been camped since February last year.
However, a visiting teacher, Ms Marian Browne, said the children's parents were concerned that they could not send them to school because of the lack of sanitation at the site. She said the conditions presented the parents with "very real concerns".
"One parent said to me will you let me know which day they are due to start on so that I can try and wash them?'. They want the best for their children and their concerns must be taken on boards" she said.
Mr Abe Jacob, administrative officer with the council's community department, accepted that conditions were awful and presented health issues, but stressed the families were camped illegally on private land.
"It is our policy not to provide services to these ad hoc sites, because it undermines public acceptance of new official halting sites. From our point of view, we can't do anything, because it is not our site," he said.