The Minister of State for Housing, Mr Noel Ahern, has said the pace at which Traveller accommodation is being provided is too slow and he would be seeking annual progress reports from local authorities over the next four years.
He told The Irish Times he planned to give greater powers to the National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee (NTACC) to monitor progress on the issue and to report its views to him regularly. He would be taking the reports very seriously, he added.
The Minister will publish a report from the NTACC - a review of the operation of the 1998 Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act - on Monday.
The 1998 Act mandated every local authority to draw up five-year accommodation plans for Travellers in their own areas. The time frame for these expired last month, and Traveller groups estimate that just one-third of the accommodation has been delivered. They add that no local authority has delivered its plan in full.
Meanwhile, local authorities are now drawing up their next plans, to run over four years from April.
Mr Ahern said yesterday it was important to stress there had been considerable progress in the provision of Traveller accommodation.
"An additional 1,369 Travellers' families have been accommodated since 1999, and the number of families by the side of the road, which used to be over 1,200, is now less than 800. The plans have not been fully implemented, though a lot has been achieved," he added.
He said the budget for Traveller accommodation would increase from €40 million last year to about €45 million this year.
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