Some 6,000 Travellers - 24 per cent of the total - live on unserviced sites or by the side of the road. Such sites lack regular refuse collection, running water, electricity, toilets and bathing facilities. Studies have shown a link between life expectancy and living conditions. Travellers now have the life expectancy the settled community had in the 1950s.
Every local authority in the State adopted plans submitted to the Department of the Environment on March 31st, to provide halting sites. They are "in the process of being adopted", according to a spokeswoman.