Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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139. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the supports available for local community groups such as the Donegal refugee response group to help them facilitate the integration of refugees arriving in the area; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41629/16]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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140. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of refugees arriving in County Donegal in 2017; if not, if she will provide details of the process involved in deciding the persons who will be relocated to County Donegal; if local community groups can be informed beforehand so they can meet the needs of refugees arriving to the area including arranging supports for them to integrate into the local communities; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41630/16]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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206. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she has a confirmed destination for future refugees coming into Ireland; if County Donegal will be one of those destinations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1833/17]

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 139, 140 and 206 together.

As the Deputy is aware, the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP) was approved by Government Decision on 10 September 2015 in response to the migration crisis which has developed in Southern Europe, and as an act of solidarity with other Member States. Under this decision, the Government confirmed that Ireland will take in up to 4,000 persons in order to give effect to the EU legal instruments it has opted into, with approval of the Oireachtas, in respect of relocation and the solemn commitments Ireland has also entered into in respect of resettled refugees.

The figure of 4,000 includes 2,622 asylum seekers to be taken in from migration hotspots in Italy and Greece under the new EU relocation programme and 1,040 programme refugees from Lebanon which the Irish Government has committed to taking in by the end of 2017 under Ireland's Refugee Resettlement Programme. Up to two hundred unaccompanied minors from the former refugee camps in Calais may be admitted from France. The mechanism by which the balance will be admitted has yet to be decided by Government.

Among the measures agreed under the Programme was the establishment of a Network of Emergency Reception and Orientation Centres (EROCs) which would be used to provide initial accommodation in order to meet the basic needs of asylum seekers relocated from hot spots in Italy and Greece while their applications for refugee status are processed.

In addition, the Government has committed under the Programme to take in additional resettled refugees who must also be temporally accommodated in EROCs for the purposes of reception, orientation and integration training, prior to being resettled in communities across Ireland. In this specific regard two EROCs were opened in the past year, one in County Kildare and one in Co. Waterford.

Those coming in as relocated asylum seekers via Greece/Italy are managed by the Programme Office of the IRPP. Those destined for the new Emergency Reception and Orientation Centre (EROC) in Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon, will be asylum seekers coming via the Greece/Italy route. As this cohort will receive a grant of international protection within a period of 8-12 weeks, their stay in EROCs is intended to be short-term after which they will be housed somewhere in Ireland.

In terms of the resettlement in local communities of refugees temporarily accommodated in EROCs, the Deputy will be aware that the Government has established a Taskforce to oversee the implementation of the Irish Refugee Protection Programme. Senior Officials from Government departments and key agencies, including the City and County Managers Association, sit on the Taskforce. A sub-committee of the Taskforce, established to oversee the implementation of the Irish Refugee Protection Programme and composed of senior officials from Government Departments including the City and County Managers Association, is working on a distribution key to inform the distribution of refugees admitted under the programmes across the country. To-date, refugees have been resettled in Dublin, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Galway and Mayo. In advance of each resettlement, work takes place with each receiving Local Authority and local service providers to prepare for the arrival of the refugees in the community. Initially, meetings take place with statutory service providers only. Once the initial phase is over, representatives of local NGOs and the Community and Voluntary Sector are invited to join the Inter-agency Working Group to support the resettlement programme at a local level. Funding is provided through the Local Authority to support the work of local Community Groups which includes the recruitment of a full or part-time Resettlement Support Worker. The amount of funding available will depend, inter-alia, on the number of refugees resettled and the number of locations involved. The Local Authority must submit an application for funding but is supported though the funding process by an experienced member of the resettlement team of my Department. Over the next 18 months, refugees will be resettled in counties around the country until the full cohort of refugees have arrived in Ireland and have been resettled into the community. Over that period it is likely that County Donegal will be expected to house a representative proportion of the refugees admitted to Ireland. It is not possible at this stage to say how many of these refugees might go to Donegal in 2017, and discussions are ongoing with the local authority in this regard.