This year is set to be one of the busiest for immigration and integration in Ireland. It will hopefully be the year when issues around integration of migrants will become a part of the mainstream policy decision making of the Irish State.
When Taoiseach Bertie Ahern appointed me as the country’s first Minister for Integration, I was aware of both the enormous challenge but also the enormous opportunity Ireland now has to get things right, and avoid the pitfalls that many other European countries have fallen into with regard to wide-scale inward migration.
It is now six months since my appointment, and the fledgling Office of the Minister for Integration is up and running, greatly assisted by a budget allocation of just over 9m euro from Minister for Finance Brian Cowen.
In an administrative sense, while fresh staff are still to be recruited, there is enough in that budget allocation for the year ahead to start the work that needs to be done so that the issue receives the priority it deserves across the various Government departments.
In the weeks before Christmas, the Office of the Minister for Integration was given a senior civil servant of the rank of Assistant Secretary, someone with huge experience which will give the office the credibility needed to carry out its cross-departmental mandate.
In the months ahead a number of initiatives will be launched which will be aimed at coming up with the solid foundations, in policy terms, of the integration agenda. In the first place it will be the intention of the Government to publish a set of Integration Principles around which policy will be developed. Following that, the Office of the Minister for Integration will publish a discussion document that has been drafted by a cross-departmental group on integration as a spur for further policy development.
For my own part I shall be establishing a Ministerial Council for Integration that will be drawn directly from the migrant communities that play such an important part in our evolving and very successful society here in Ireland.
The role of this Ministerial Council will be to feed into policymakers (like myself and my officials) the views of the migrant communities themselves, so that their distinct views are at the very heart of policy decision-making. It will have both a geographic spread of representation as well as draw from the active people who head up Ireland’s migrant-led groups.
In addition to this, I shall begin to set out the specific funding measures the Office of the Minister for Integration will engage in, and the kind of integration work that these funding lines will focus on, with a view to fostering greater social and civic participation by migrants in Irish life.
Specifically, these new budget lines will be aimed at organisations that are migrant-led, as well as encouraging various existing groups to take up the work of integrating migrants in a more systematic manner. In particular, I have indicated a preference for funding groups that are faith-based, have large memberships and are part of the current partnership structures in Irish life. Organisations like the major sporting codes, trade unions, employer bodies and the political parties are among the first that spring to mind.
Local authorities also need to be encouraged further to become deeply involved in the work of integrating new communities into the mainstream of local life within their catchment areas. This is not as easy as some might believe, but the work has to begin this year.
In terms of this new role that the Taoiseach has given me, I see my mandate in fairly simple terms as being one of guaranteeing that social stability is to the foremost in our planning for further ethnic and migrant diversity in Ireland.
While many books have been written about our ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy, most of them ignore the huge role that social partnership structures have played in the evolving success story that Ireland has become. The partnership process, grounded on the very basic notion of social stability, is the anchor that allowed our ship of State and wider society to plan for the enormous improvements that we have seen in recent years.
Further economic consolidation and improvement can only happen in Ireland against a background of continued investment in social stability. This means making provision in policy terms for an increasingly diverse society that is predicated on the principle of equality.
To assist in creating the policy template around which integration will occur in the medium to long term, I intend to establish a Task Force on Integration to report back to me within a year. It will be expertise-led and asked to produce the kind of practical policies and approaches that will allow this and subsequent Governments to plan for the new diversity in Irish life. There will be a strong consultative function to this task force, and it is intended to invite submissions as well as meet with interested groups.
In my previous role as the minister responsible for the day-to-day operation of Irish Aid, I completed a White Paper process that saw the outline of future development aid policy set down for the next 10 years or so.
This White Paper has set down the policy framework on how Ireland will reach the 0.7 per cent of GNP for aid by 2012, and also itemises the kind of practical policies which will guide the spending of an enormous sum of money.
I hope that within the space of the next year or two, a similar exercise can be completed with regard to integration. We also need to plan for the fixed structures that will guide public policy in this area for the long term.
That is why I believe that the new Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill, to be tabled shortly, should be seen as a first instalment in what will be a regularly reviewed system of immigration and integration law.
At a practical level, the Task Force on Integration will be asked to come up with the design and brief for a new body called the Commission for Integration, which will assist my office and Government with regard to all issues affecting migration and migrants.
This new body will be a conscious effort by the Government to demonstrate that migration is now a settled item of policy, and will underline the need for regular review as well as a constant level of research and public consultation as we try to refine and redefine our policies.
Migration into Ireland has occurred against a background of enormous economic and societal improvement. Migrants who come here are, on average, better qualified in most cases than our own indigenous population. This makes us different and gives us the unique responsibility of ensuring they participate to the maximum of their potential in our society.
Ireland’s extraordinary story of social and economic improvement will only be consolidated into further growth if we can manage our society in a way that allows for difference and for a sense of social solidarity to continue to be the principle that underpins our peace and prosperity.
Conor Lenihan TD is Minister for Integration and represents the constituency of Dublin South West, which includes Tallaght, Firhouse, Temple-ogue and Greenhills. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1997.
