Public Consultation to inform national migrant integration strategy launched

23 Oct 2023

 

The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) has launched a public consultation to inform the development of a new national strategy for migrant integration. The consultation plans to gather insights and experiences of challenges, needs and opportunities regarding migrant integration in Ireland. The consultation is open until 30 November 2023.

The approach of the Migrant Integration Strategy 2017-2020 which  was extended to the end of 2021 due to Covid-19 was built on mainstreaming migrant access to public services on the same basis as citizens, with additional supports being provided for specific groups based on identified need. In current Irish policy, integration is defined as the ability to participate to the extent that a person needs and wishes in all of the major components of society without having to relinquish his or her own cultural identity.

Integration not only allows migrants to contribute to the economic, social, cultural, and political life of their host country, but it is also important for social cohesion and inclusive growth. The Economic Social Research Institute (ESRI) jointly with DCEDIY produces a regular Monitoring Report on Integration, the latest of which was published in March 2022. The report uses a range of indicators, based on the most recently available data, to compare the outcomes of the Irish- and foreign-born population in key life domains: employment, education, social inclusion, and active citizenship. Monitoring Reports on Integration may help to identify areas where migrants may need additional support and can assist in keeping integration on the policy agenda.

The key findings of the most recent Monitoring Report on Integration include the following:

  • In 2022 the migrant unemployment rate was still higher than the Irish-born unemployment rate (5.9 per cent compared to 4.6 per cent).
  • The Irish population is among the most highly educated in the EU. Even so, a greater share of the foreign-born population aged 25-34 has a third-level degree (67 per cent) than the Irish-born population (56 per cent) of that age.
  • Migrants also had a higher ‘at-risk of poverty’ rate (at 17 per cent) than Irish-born (12 per cent).

EMN Ireland and the ESRI also produced a report on the Integration of Non-EU Migrant Women in Ireland in 2022. In 2020 there were almost 89,000 non-EU women and girls living in Ireland, representing 3.5% of the resident female population. The study found that migrant women may face a ‘double disadvantage’ relating to being both a woman and a migrant. Migrant women (broadly defined) were not specifically addressed in the most recent migrant integration strategy.

Most recently in May 2023, a report produced by the Centre of Effective Services (CES) commissioned by DCEIDY sought to assess how effective the processes used to implement the migrant integration strategy among other strategies were.

 

To read more about the public consultation, click here

To search for publications relevant to integration in the EMN Ireland Research Library, click here

See also