Plans to redevelop Cork halting site already out of date, says councillor

Plans to redevelop a controversial halting site are already out of date and will not address overcrowding, the chairman of Cork City Council's Traveller accommodation committee has said.

Last week, the local authority said that tender invitations had been issued for the redevelopment of the Spring Lane halting site in Ballyvolane, and the construction of a purpose-built group housing scheme in the adjacent Ellis’s Yard.

In August, violence erupted at the halting site, and two men were hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries.

Conditions at the halting site were deemed to be “shocking” and “deplorable” in a 2021 report by the Ombudsman for Children’s Office.

That report found that children were living in a filthy, overcrowded, rat-infested, and unsafe environment, with about 140 people using toilets and washing facilities designed for 40 people.

Two years ago, the council drew up plans for an €18m regeneration at Spring Lane and Ellis’s Yard, and last week those plans were put to tender.

Plans already outgrown

Green Party councillor Oliver Moran, chairman of the council’s Traveller accommodation committee, said lengthy delays with the project meant the requirements of the expanded site had already outgrown those plans.

“At a visit to the site, we counted at least 48 units that are occupied. That’s already [more than] the 42 units that the new plan will deliver."

He said the plans did not account for “a whole extended family who have repeatedly told Cork City Council they want to be moved away from the site”.

They also did not account for people who had moved back to the site unofficially due to the housing crisis or were sleeping on floors or in vehicles, he said.

Caravans destroyed in fire

Last month, two caravans were destroyed in an overnight fire at Spring Lane, with a third suffering smoke damage. A garda spokesperson said foul play was not suspected.

One resident told The Echo it was only “the mercy of God” that prevented a repetition of the Carrickmines tragedy, the 2015 Dublin halting site fire which killed 11 members of the Traveller community, including an unborn child.

Last week, an Oireachtas committee heard a leading Cork Traveller advocate claim that racism was the reason the Spring Lane site was in such a dire condition.

Breda O’Donoghue, director of advocacy at the Traveller Visibility Group Cork, was asked why conditions in Spring Lane were allowed to become so bad.

“There is no other word for it only racism here,” she said.

Racism claim disputed

That claim was strongly disputed by Brian Geaney, Cork City Council deputy chief executive, who said he did not believe councillors were “in any way racist”.

Mr Geaney cited to the committee “a litany” of incidents of intimidation toward contractors sent to carry out work at the site.

A spokesperson for Cork City Council said it was “fully committed to the delivery of the Spring Lane housing redevelopment project”.