A group of families in Tipperary have refused to move into new council-built homes because they do not have stables and extra land for their horses.
The dispute centres on a €1.7m development at Cabragh Bridge outside Thurles where an extended Traveller family has lived for nearly 50 years.
Tipperary County Council has built six new homes opposite their current settlement.
But the families say they will not move in unless two stables and at least half an acre of land are included behind each house for their horses.
Some of the new houses built at Cabragh West, Thurles.
Thurles councillor Jim Ryan, who is not impressed, said: "We as councillors are absolutely bemused over this because you have so many people in the area looking for housing, on the waiting list for many years, and for this to go on is a kick in the teeth for those people.
"It's also a kick in the teeth for the taxpayers of this country because €1.7m is a huge amount of money to spend on this development, the council have done their bit and yet the houses are completely vacant, and it's just not good enough."
“They were to be built with a half-acre behind each house, with two stables,” Philip McCarthy, one of the residents of the site at Cabragh Bridge, told the Irish Examiner at the weekend.
“They [Tipperary County Council] changed it to a group project, like a mini-housing estate. The agreement was two stables and a half an acre for the horses, but they never came up with that.”
“Our livestock is our culture, and a big, big part of our life. We’ll have to come to some sort of agreement, because otherwise it’s no good to us.
"We have paddocks here and stables and stuff, which is not across the way [in the new development]. It’s a beautiful project and we’re happy with the project, but there’s no room for the livestock. That’s what’s holding us up at the moment.
"They want us to drop our culture and throw it aside."
"It’s a very, very hard thing for us to do. It’s in our life, we’re going back centuries."
