DESPITE DEBATES NO RESOLUTION IS FOUND IN THE 90’S
ROWS between Sligo Corporation, the then Itinerant Settlement Committee and Sligo Public Representatives continued well into the 1990’s.
In February 1989, Clr. Carroll made it clear that the residents of the North Ward did not want a halting site in their area.
He said Connaughton Road was in a disgraceful condition and itinerants, the term used by media in those days, were now encroaching on the Green Fort property.
Problems also existed at Ash Lane and the Market Yard, he said, and the Corporation wold have to do something about it.
“A halting site is definitely out as far as the North Ward is concerned. The residents there have put up with enough already and they will not accept a halting site!” Clr. Carroll added.
Alderman Declan Bree said the Corporation was faced with two problems.
The first was that they had a moral and legal obligation to provide accommodation for the permanent travelling families in the town and the second was that they had to consider the feelings of residents in the North Ward who had been complaining about the situation in Connaughton Road and Ash Lane for the past two years.
Alderman John Harrison said it seemed to him that the travelling people were dictating to the Corporation. He said they refused to live in certain areas.
Alderman Deirdre Hanly said the Corporation had responsi- bility to provide accommodation for six families and and there was no point in using the “big stick” and telling the itinerants they would have to go to Ballyfree.
Clr. Carroll said: “We put an offer to the Itinerant Settlement Committee to house six itinerant families but that offer was turned down because we were told that the itinerants were of a different culture and would not live in houses.
“They have to realise that they can’t get everything they want. Nobody can. I had to work hard and earn whatever I have and that is the way it is for everybody.
“They leave squalor and dirt behind them wherever they are yet the can drive around in their big diesel vans and don’t have to worry about finding money to pay fines. They are put up as being poor but they are not poor at all,” he said.
Clr Sean MacManus said it was clear itinerants wanted to live in an urban area because Social Welfare benefit was greater here than it was in rural areas.
That was the real key to the problem. He had suggested some time ago that the disparity between Social Welfare benefit in the town and county be done away with and he still felt the problem could be solved if this was done.
Clr. Tony McLoughlin said it was obvious the idea of a halting site at Ballyfree had been a “disastrous” one.