page_title: Halting site
section_title: Accommodation for Travellers in Ireland
hierarchical_section_title: Halting site / Provision of Halting Sites by Local Authorities / Accommodation for Travellers in Ireland
caption_attribution_description: English: The latest pitch A regular group of travellers find their latest spot at the end of Edison Road. I have tracked them to at least half a dozen sites in the last couple of years around Basingstoke.
context_page_description: A halting site is purpose-built residential accommodation for Travellers provided by a local municipal authority. The halting site has an individual bay for each family unit with a full range of services provided in a small structure on each bay.
context_section_description: Irish state policy for providing housing for the Travelling Community is laid out in legislation, the most recent being the 1998 Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act. This law outlines the 5-year rolling accommodation programmes required of each municipal authority to meet the existing and projected accommodation needs of Travellers in their areas. 
  A minority of Travellers reside on Halting sites. Of the 30,987 Traveller individuals recorded as living in the Republic of Ireland in Census 2016 approximately 950 families live on Halting sites.
  Other Accommodation Types for Travellers can include: 
  Standard Local Authority Social Housing
  Traveller Group Housing
  RAS (abbrev for Rental Accommodation Scheme) & Leasing
  HAP (abbrev for Housing Assistance Payment)
  Voluntary Housing
  Rural Dwellings (not applicable in cities)
  Private Rented Accommodation
   
  A halting site should not be confused with an encampment set up on private or public land (including highway verges and lay-bys) without the consent of the landowner. 
  Due to these being unauthorised the people residing there are liable to eviction. These lack facilities and are referred to in official documents as "Temporary Dwellings". The provisions set out in the 1998 Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act contain strong powers for local authorities to deal with unauthorised temporary dwellings. There are penalties used to deal with illegal encampments, as outlined in relevant legislation.
   
  These laws include: 
  Local Government (Sanitary Services) Act 1948
  Planning and Development Acts 2000-2006
  Section 10 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1992 as amended by Section 32 of the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act, 1998
  Roads Act, 1993
  Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 (as amended)
  Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2002
  The Housing Department in the Local Authority of each county implements the Traveller Accommodation Programme. This Traveller Accommodation Programme is determined by assessment of need in the local government's administrative area, in accordance with the terms of the 1998 Act. Local authorities calculate the accommodation needs of Traveller households who are approved applicants for accommodation. This involves a census of the number of Travellers residing in the county towards the end of the calendar year. The assessment is done in consultation with the Travelling Community, Travellers’ Organisations, the Local Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee, Public Representatives, the wider community and other Statutory and Voluntary Bodies.
  Regarding halting site size, case studies showed that the range should be between five and fifteen bays but consensus rests on the number of ten. The conclusion was drawn that sites that are smaller than ten bays can create difficulties in the provision of onsite services (such as community centres and pre-school facilities) because of the economies of scale involved.
caption: an encampment on a highway verge 16 March 2010
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