Council gives no timeline to reopen seven bays it has blocked at a Traveller accommodation site in Ballymun

Turning right on Monday at the entrance to St Margaret’s Park in Ballymun, the streets were tidy.

There were mostly modern mobile homes on that side of the Traveller estate, with decking and cars parked outside. Young children played on worn-out playground equipment on a green. 

Turning left, the scene was dramatic. Homes were ripped apart or burned out. Gardens were filled with muck, the streets filled with mounds of rubble. Rubbish was piled in black bags and scattered around. 

Following a feud on the site, Dublin City Council evicted some people, including tenants not involved in the feud but who had been subletting, says People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy. 

They also blocked off bays by dumping piles of rubble on them. “They’re taking a fairly blunt approach to this,” says Reddy, “And I wouldn’t support that.”

A council spokesperson said the council had closed off part of the site and has no timeline in mind to reopen it. 

“A number of bays have been secured with soil placed in the bays and secure blocks preventing entry to them following consultation with the relevant statutory bodies,” they said.

Council staff had removed illegal dumping from the site on Tuesday, he said. They are also reinstating the green space, they said.

Martin Collins, co-director of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, says the council should clear up the site and relet the accommodation, given the many Traveller families who are desperate for homes.

“I think this is a bit drastic and a bit disproportionate,” said Collins. 

If there is anti-social behaviour in a housing estate, the council doesn’t decommission houses, he said.

It’s not working 

In February, during a violent feud, homes were damaged at St Margaret’s Park. Dublin Fire Brigade was called out to deal with a blaze, according to FM104. 

Collins says he understands that Dublin City Council, after this, closed off seven of the 30 bays in the housing estate. 

But they should re-open the accommodation and re-assign the homes urgently, he says. 

“It's absolutely incredible in the middle of a housing crisis that [the council] would decommission bays.”

“We have about 1,600 Traveller families, equating to about 7,800 individuals, who are effectively homeless,” he said.

Those national figures include people in overcrowded and unsafe conditions, says Collins. It includes people living “on the side of the road” – so with nowhere to park up  a mobile home permanently – and those in emergency accommodation.

Bernard Joyce, director of the Irish Traveller Movement, says the council should change the way it manages Traveller accommodation to involve tenants more.

“The current approach by Dublin City Council needs a fundamental shift in perspective,” he says. Withdrawing essential services isn’t effective management, says Joyce. 

“For St Margaret’s to be sustainable, the residents need to be partners in how the site is run,” he says. “They need a framework that provides tenants with the resources to participate in estate management effectively.”

The council spokesperson says that some of the bays that were closed off were already unoccupied. 

“It should be noted that any families who contacted the Traveller Accommodation Unit due to being displaced were engaged with,” said the spokesperson. 

On Monday at St Margaret’s Park, homes were getting their electricity from a generator, placed outside the disused community centre.

The ESB disconnected the electricity to the site on 18 March, said the council spokesperson, “due to a significant health and safety risk”.

The council supplied the generator, said the spokesperson. It has since completed all maintenance works and submitted documentation to the ESB so that the permanent electricity supply can be reinstated, they said.

The tenants are responsible for liaising with an electricity support to set up or reactivate accounts, they said – and they had sent two letters explaining that. 

The opposite of new homes

The council’s previous Traveller Accommodation Programme, which ran from 2019 to 2024, mentioned that plans for redevelopment of St Margaret’s Park had been approved by councillors, and would be sent to the Department of Housing.

In their submission to that plan, the St Margaret’s Travellers Community Association mentioned the impact of overcrowding, poor maintenance, and the regular withdrawal of council services on residents of the site.

Under the council’s current programme, which runs from 2025 to 2029, St Margaret’s Park is listed for regeneration.

The idea has been to convert the halting site into a group housing scheme, the report says. But the council and residents haven’t been able to agree a design, it says.

A spokesperson for the council said on 30 April that “there is currently no immediate plan to regenerate St Margarets Park.” 

The council is reviewing this and will liaise with tenants, and Traveller groups in relation to it all, they said. The council has no plans to sell or develop the land for other uses, they said.