Clare County Council yesterday took action to remove Traveller families from tourist amenity areas in north Clare by enacting special powers allowing it to bypass the planning process to construct an emergency halting site.
The council is to spend more than €700,000 on the emergency site, which is near Ennistymon, to accommodate nine families.
A number of the families have been living on the promenade at Lahinch and Creg beaches in recent months.
The move is part of a council initiative to provide accommodation for the estimated 34 Traveller families remaining on the roadside in Clare.
Last month the council enacted similar powers to start work on a €3 million emergency halting site to solve the Traveller accommodation crisis in Ennis.
Mr Tom Coughlan, director of service with the council, said yesterday that 70 per cent of the council's Traveller accommodation programme had been implemented, but a number of families had not yet been accommodated.
"They are living on the roadside without basic facilities, and that is unacceptable," Mr Coughlan said.
Work on the site would start immediately and the site would be ready early in the new year.
The council compulsorily purchased the 3.8-acre site from Mr Maurice Harvey for €410,000.
Mr Harvey was the director of elections for Fianna Fáil in last June's local elections in Clare.
