The persistent failures of some local authorities to provide for the housing needs of Travellers are a constant of Irish politics. No matter how often the State's watchdogs uncover new ways in which policy and practice diverge, little seems to change. Reviews published by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission in July showed a lack of interest or understanding among some local authorities in dealing with Traveller accommodation. While some approached the issue with seriousness and sensitivity, the under-spending of Traveller housing budgets told its own story. In May, the Ombudsman for Children criticised Cork City Council for allowing the situation get so bad at one halting site that children were living in unsafe squalor, with high rates of illness and nowhere to play.
A new insight came on Sunday with the publication of a report by the Office of the Planning Regulator. It identified a remarkable fact: while all 31 local authorities comply with their legal duty to produce, every five years, a Traveller Accommodation Programme – a plan that sets out what is needed, where and how quickly – many of those same authorities do not bother to incorporate any of that information into their six-yearly Local Development Plans, which determine what is actually going to happen. It’s yet another example of the legal minimalism that some authorities employ when dealing with the issue. The same tactics are used by some councillors. As the Free Legal Advice Centres recently pointed out, councillors may adopt a plan for the provision of Traveller accommodation every five years – as they are legally obliged to do, and which the authority is legally bound to implement – yet then vote against the delivery of individual components of that programme, thereby ensuring it goes nowhere.
Some elected representatives and agencies of the State continue to find new ways to thwart the spirit of the law and deny members of a vulnerable minority their rights, in other words. And the cause is not incompetence. It is prejudice. The discrimination that follows is not merely tolerated; it is as good as built into the system.