Co Offaly has the highest percentage of travellers per head of population, according to the last census, beating Fingal, Co Dublin, by a narrow head. There are, according to figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) last April, eight travellers per thousand in Offaly, seven per thousand in Fingal and six per thousand in Galway city.
The figures are causing confusion in the midlands because those who work with the travelling people are not sure they are accurate.
Mary O'Donoghue, a community development worker with the Tullamore Travellers' Movement, is amazed at the statistics, as are the travellers themselves.
"Let me put it to you this way. The travellers are not living in Offaly because of high levels of tolerance or better housing or any other reason that would attract travellers here. The travelling community here has exactly the same problems as in every other county. They get no better treatment here than anywhere else," she says.
"I also believe that travellers here are more likely to describe themselves as travellers than they might be in other areas. Apart from that, I cannot explain it."
The travellers' movement was still attempting to find out from the CSO why counties such as Donegal and towns such as Tuam seem to have fewer travellers than they actually have.
Ms O'Donoghue says that in Tullamore most of the unhoused families live on a rat-infested site known as "The Sewerage", where conditions are awful. Conditions are not much better for the families living on the side of the road near Birr and in Ferbane.
The travellers are, she says, looking forward to the equal-status legislation promised from November.
In the meantime the movement would continue to work for the empowerment of travellers and to ensure they had access to decision-making, education, health care and the promotion of their culture.
A spokeswoman for Offaly County Council said it conducts a survey of travelling families each November, and the figures compiled do not seem to tally with those in the CSO.
The council found 48 families living on the roadside last November. Of these, 43 were indigenous to Co Offaly.
A total of 65 families have been housed by or with the help of the local authorities, including 17 on the county's main halting site in Tullamore.
She said that three more families own their homes, one was in emergency accommodation, and six were living in private rented accommodation.
The spokeswoman said questions had been asked about the concentration of families which may have been assembled at Eglish, near Birr, when the census was taken in April 1996.
"Families move in and out of the Birr site, and it may be that some of the families were in transit at that time when they were approached by the census-takers."
She added that a site for eight families was recently opened on the Roscrea road in Birr.
The latest figures from Co Longford showed a dramatic drop in the number of travelling families living on the roadside. The figures, given to a meeting of the county council, showed a drop in the number of families living by the road from 31 in 1996 to 10 in 1997.