The prospect of Travellers securing council housing in Clare has been reduced following a late intervention by councillors in adopting Clare County Council's Traveller accommodation plan.
The €28 million draft plan proposed an ad hoc quota system stating that the council would "generally endeavour" to allocate one in seven local authority houses to Travellers.
At a meeting yesterday, however, councillors agreed to a one in 10 proposal. The council's director for housing, Tom Coughlan, said the change could delay the implementation of the plan.
Heather Rosen, a member of a local Traveller support group, said the move was further proof of the discrimination against Travellers embedded in the plan. "Any submissions made by Travellers on the draft plan did not make any difference to the eventual plan." Ms Rosen added that the accommodation plan was "an attack on Traveller culture".
The budget in the plan represents a €265,000 outlay on housing each Traveller family. It is hoped it will end the plight of Traveller families living on the roadside. The 2000-04 plan fell short of its targets but it did reduce the number of roadside Traveller families to 14 from 61 at the outset of the programme.
