The site of a controversial Traveller encampment in Limerick has been fenced off after some 30 Traveller families decided to leave the site.
The Travellers were served with eviction notices last week to vacate the site near the Parkway shopping centre and they left at the weekend. Conditions at the illegal encampment on the main Dublin to Limerick road were condemned last week as "stomach-churning" by Minister of State Tim O'Malley.
Mr O'Malley said he had received dozens of calls from local householders who were afraid to challenge Travellers who he said were using their gardens as toilets.
However, the Irish Traveller Movement said his comments were unhelpful and that he was tarnishing an entire community because of the actions of a few.
The Irish Traveller Movement said that similar situations arose every summer because of the failure of the local authority to provide transient accommodation for Travellers.
Workers from Limerick council moved in swiftly to clean up and fence off the land after the Travellers left. A council spokesman said: "The reports back were that many members of the Travelling community did not leave the site in a bad condition and that most of them gathered up refuse and left it piled up which allowed us to remove it."