Carlow County Council has abandoned a plan to turn Tullow's main car-park into a temporary halting site for Travellers, after the idea provoked outrage among the residents of the town.
The council is now seeking an alternative site for the seven Travelling families living in the Bridge Street car-park, some of whom have been there for eight years.
Their occupation of the site has long been a source of annoyance to local traders and residents who claim business is being lost and considerable inconvenience caused.
Impatience at the council's failure to address the problem turned to anger last month when it was learned that the council planned to turn the car-park into a legal, temporary halting site by providing the Travellers with water and sewage facilities and a refuse collection service.
The depth of feeling about the issue was made clear at a recent public meeting in the town attended by nearly 500 people, many of whom denounced the council's proposal. Community activists who organised the meeting insist that their stance was not anti-Traveller and that their dispute was entirely with Carlow County Council and the location chosen by it for the halting site. Ms Kay Hendrick of the Mill Street Residents group said the provision of a serviced halting site for the Travellers was long overdue, but the town's car-park was the wrong location.
"We haven't denied the Travellers their basic human rights. It's the council who's to blame for that," she said.
Travellers living in the carpark, however, see it differently. Ms Ann Marie Cash, who shares a caravan with her five adult brothers and sisters, was angered by the sight of people purporting to speak in the Travellers' interests.
"We were at that meeting and it was the very same as if the Travellers didn't exist," she said. "Everybody was talking about what should be done with the Travelling people. Why don't they come to ask us what we want? We're human. We can talk, you know."
Carlow County Council's housing officer, Mr Michael Delahunty, says the Travellers, along with settled community groups, will be consulted about the location for an alternative temporary site.
"We need a site which is suitable for the indigenous Travelling families of the town," he said. "There are nine Travelling families in Tullow, including the seven in the car-park, and solutions will have to be found in Tullow for these families."
Councillors were told on Monday by the deputy county manager, Mr Jim Kearney, of the decision to drop the proposal to provide facilities in the car-park, Mr Delahunty said.
In the long term, the council plans to provide a permanent halting site at Ardristan, on the Wexford road from the town. Residents have objected to the proposal and the matter is due to be decided by the High Court.
RESIDENTS had feared that if the Ardristan proposal was blocked by the courts, the temporary car-park site could become a permanent home for the Travellers. Ms Cash said people should have had more faith in the council.
" `Temporary' and `permanent' are two different words in the dictionary ... What they're objecting to is us getting water and toilets until permanent arrangements are found," she said.
Mr Michael Cleary of the Develop Tullow Association said this was simply not the case. "We have no objection to them getting water and toilet facilities, but the car-park is not the place," he said. The town was losing business as a result of the occupation of the car-park, which made shopping in the town inconvenient and encouraged people to go into Carlow instead.
Interest groups such as the Tullow Community Development Initiative say other problems caused by the Travellers' presence include the dumping of rubbish in the Slaney, which runs alongside the car-park.
Ms Cash said the Travellers were a convenient scapegoat for all the town's problems. She said the Travellers burned their rubbish in a corner of the car-park, which was remarkably tidy given the lack of a refuse collection service. As for other facilities, the families get water from a local convent which must be boiled before consumption. And toilets? "We sneak into pubs when the landlords aren't looking, to be honest with you," she said.
A drinkable water supply to the car-park, via a tap at the back of business premises which back on to the site, was switched off some weeks ago. Local residents say this was simply because the business concerned had ceased trading.
