STORM TRACKER: Follow 'Storm Amy' as it bears down on Ireland amid brutal forecast
Search
05 Sept 2025
Search
05 Sept 2025
Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.
Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist.
If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter .
Support our mission and join our community now.
To continue reading this article, you can subscribe for as little as €0.50 per week which will also give you access to all of our premium content and archived articles!
Alternatively, you can pay €0.50 per article, capped at €1 per day.
Thank you for supporting Ireland's best local journalism!
Over 50 not-for-profit organisations are set to receive €2.5 million for projects supporting International Protection applicants.
The Minister of State for Community Development, Integration and Charities, Joe O’Brien, today (May 29) confirmed news that €2,496,790 in funding will be allocated under the International Protection Integration Fund 2024.
The fund helps community-based organisations to support the integration of International Protection applicants (IPAs) at local and national level.
It's not the only government fund promoting integration, as three other sets of integration supports were announced this year by the minister, including the National Integration Fund (NIF), the Asylum Migrant Integration Fund (AMIF), and the Community Integration Fund (CIF).
Minister O’Brien has doubled the fund compared to 2023 when awards of €1.2 million were given out.
Speaking about the news, he said, "I am pleased to be able today to announce another in a series of integration specific funding announcements aimed at supporting local communities to successfully welcome new arrivals in a way that works with and for those arriving and the communities welcoming them.
"The efforts that are being undertaken in communities throughout Ireland to work positively for successful integration are inspiring and it was apt that I made today’s announcement at The Wheel’s Annual Summit where representatives from the Community and Voluntary sector – and indeed a number of the successful projects under this fund - were present."
Applications to the fund were submitted under nine themes, including employment, educational awareness, language, civic and legal supports, health and wellbeing, intercultural awareness, children and young people, transportation, and LGBTQI+.
The highest allocations of €100,000 were issued to a number of organisations including Business in the Community Ireland for EPIC (Employment for People from Immigrant Communities) training, wellbeing programmes for women displaced by war and persecution at Donegal Women's Centre, and for integration support workers at the New Horizon Athlone Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support Group.
According to the European Migration Network (EMN), immigration to Ireland has risen significantly over the last number of years.
Over 141,000 immigrants came to Ireland between April 2022 and April 2023, marking a 31% increase from the year to April 2022.
Although emigration also continues to increase (with 64,000 emigrants between April 2022 and April 2023), there has been a 50% increase in net migration (77,600) compared to the year before.
Additionally, a total of 13,651 applications for international protection were made in 2022, marking a "significant" increase from previous years.
It marks a 415% increase from 2021 and a 186% increase from 2019, the last comparable year before Covid-19 travel restrictions, and the highest number of asylum applications on record in Ireland.
The top three countries of origin for IPAs were Georgia, Algeria and Somalia, with applications for international protection in Ireland accounting for 1.3% of the EU total.
Algeria and Georgia are both considered to be "safe countries" by the Department of Justice and the Irish government.
Today's news comes following weeks of government criticism after IPAs set up tents by the Grand Canal in Dublin due to a lack of State accommodation.
Subscribe or register today to discover more from DonegalLive.ie
Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.
Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.
This publication supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice of the Press Council. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at www.presscouncil.ie, Lo-call 1800 208 080 or email: info@presscouncil.ie.
