Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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121. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he intends providing additional funding and resources to the Emigrant Support Programme to help remove barriers facing returning Irish emigrants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12748/23]

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Government's current Diaspora Strategy 2020-2025 pledges to monitor barriers to returning emigrants and undertakes to adopt measures to remove them where possible, as well as to improve the provision of information to our communities abroad on returning to Ireland.

To this end, my Department engages on an ongoing basis with other Government Departments and agencies as well as with a broad range of organisations, both in Ireland and overseas, to support returning Irish citizens and their families.

These partner organisations include Crosscare and Safe Home, both of which receive funding from the Government’s Emigrant Support Programme.

This Programme was established in 2004 and has since then assisted over 530 organisations in some 37 countries with grants totalling over €220 million, including grants directed towards organisations such as these which support returning emigrants.

My Department also funds the very successful Back for Businessinitiative, which provides peer guidance to Irish entrepreneurs who have returned, or plan to return, to Ireland. Numerous people have benefitted from this across six cycles since 2019.

We also fund the Citizens Information Bureau, which provides practical and comprehensive information to those intending to return to Ireland.

The Minister of State for International Development & Diaspora chairs the Interdepartmental Committee on the Irish Abroad and one of that Committee’s core responsibilities is to address issues affecting Irish people abroad who are seeking to return to Ireland.

I can assure the Deputy that our commitment to assist returning emigrants remains strong, as evidenced by the foregoing, and that we will continue to do all we can in this area to make their return as straightforward as possible.