Ms Anastasia Crickley:

I thank the Chair and her colleagues for the opportunity to address the committee. I speak on behalf of CWI but I am informed by: my work with marginalised and minority communities and against racism; my experience as an Irish emigrant; my experience as former chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racism; and my ongoing work on these issues, including with Travellers and Roma in Ireland and Europe.

Community Work Ireland promotes and supports community work nationally as a means of addressing poverty, exclusion and inequality. Our 900-plus members use community development methods to work for inclusion, social justice, an end to racism and rights for all who are now or have for a long time been part of Ireland. Over the past year, we have been responding to the needs of communities as they strive to meet new as well as old migration challenges and opportunities, shaping community sector responses, supporting international protection applicants, Ukrainian refugees and other migrants and providing the State with evidence-based suggestions, which I will return to, for improved interventions and initiatives.

This meeting is timely because the needs of those seeking safety and refuge, including immediate shelter, are urgent and require proactive initiatives built on a sustainable approach, and because, as the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, points out, increases in the number of applications for refuge are not unique to Ireland but part of the post-Covid and Russian Ukraine invasion climate in Europe and of conditions globally in countries of origin. As the Irish Human Rights and Equality Council, IHREC’s, research states, there is "robust support” for refugees in Ireland. This support for all migrants and against racism was clearly articulated by the tens of thousands from diverse groups who marched through Dublin last Saturday and also attended rallies in Donegal and Clare, calling for "Ireland for all" and "no racism here", as my friends from Le Chéile spoke to.

My colleagues attending this meeting from Donegal Intercultural Platform, which brings together people from black and minority ethnic communities, including Travellers and Roma, with the majority population to organise actions in support of an intercultural, antiracist Donegal, have been directly involved with the challenges of integration for people seeking safety refuge and inclusion there. They tell of fear and insecurity among international protection applicant volunteers and of intrusions by anti-migrant protestors into accommodation occupied by Ukrainian refugees. Another colleague, from elsewhere, told me of how a number of boarded-up houses on council estates have fed concerns regarding accommodation for locals first, and yet another of black Irish students having been assaulted while waiting for a bus. All of them spoke, as did many others, of new and long-standing local support groups, including the national forum, which we in CWI co-ordinate.

A new and integrated, intersectional approach by the Government is needed to build on communities' commitment and create conditions for real progress. In planning this, far-right activity and racism cannot be ignored. The amplification of hate, racist lies and direct targeting and threats to the safety of women, children and men seeking protection, as will be outlined by our FRO colleagues, all require immediate and proactive responses. The potential for manipulation of community division, exacerbated by long-standing socioeconomic inequalities and extreme housing shortages, requires immediate, repeated and clearly communicated Government commitments with timelines and targets, accountability for their realisation and ongoing communication with those affected. In effect, creating the conditions for integration means resources and services for all including migrants, and it needs vision.

The new approach, as our briefing suggests, needs to develop infrastructure for strategic and proactive inclusion; develop tools to assist responses and equip communities, community workers and migrants to respond effectively to the dangerous lies and rumours of extremists; put in place essential and targeted supports; and ensure a full sharing of learning with and by local and national decision-makers. This requires, as is also recommended by the Ukraine Civil Society Forum, of which CWI is a member, a well-structured and immediate funding stream for a community work and civil society approach supported by the Departments of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and Rural and Community Development; immediate support for recruitment and secondment schemes for community workers and others to drive engagement and response schemes in each local authority area; a programme of support for staff in all associated sectors; and the publication and resourcing of implementation of the national action plan against racism, which is on the Government's table and whose development I was a part of.

Working with communities to build a sense of belonging, cohesion and inclusion for all requires ongoing and resourced work, in particular community work. Communities, in all their diversity and inclusive of the migrants and people seeking refuge among them, need to be acknowledged as the key stakeholders in promoting integration and inclusion they are and can be, and given the necessary tools for this. Timely communications from the Government can help, but these and engagement visits by officials cannot replace essential ongoing community work and civil society initiatives. The work being done by Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth officials and Ministers during this extreme accommodation crisis needs to be acknowledged, but the situation demands parity and partnership as well as political leadership that acknowledges human rights, values them first, judges migration measures using these lenses and uses language that can reinforce this. The response we have requested is nothing more than in line with our national and international commitments including to the strategic development goals, SDGs, the global migration compact and the EU common basic principles, which point to integration as a two-way street with changes required by all.

This goes back to my vision of providing for all what some Oireachtas Members will ask for in respect of Irish emigrants over the next few weeks and an opportunity to link the two. I urge them to give positive consideration and support for essential and rapid implementation with the change in culture, parity and power-sharing at all levels it requires. I will be happy to answer members’ questions.