Housing; Local Government and Heritage | Traveller accommodation spending in County Kildare

To ask the Minister for Housing; Local Government and Heritage the amount that has been spent on Traveller accommodation in County Kildare over the past five years to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

REPLY
The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 provides that the role of my Department is to ensure that there are adequate structures and supports in place to assist housing authorities in providing accommodation for Travellers, including a national framework of policy, legislation and funding.

My Department ceased the practice of allocating specific budgets to individual local authorities and implemented a new allocation process following a review of arrangements for the disbursement of funding provision and related supports for Traveller specific accommodation. Since 2020, it is open to all local authorities to apply for and draw down funds at any time throughout the year and this is actively encouraged by my Department.  Full spend of the Traveller accommodation budget has been achieved in both 2020 and 2021.

The following table outlines the allocation and capital drawdown by Kildare County Council in each of the years 2017-2019 together with the drawdown for 2020 and 2021.