On 28 March 2000, the Government agreed with my recommendations for a statutory agency, under the aegis of my Department, to be called the Reception and Integration Agency. Pending the enactment of legislation the agency will operate on a non-statutory basis.
This decision follows an earlier decision of the Government that the recommendations in the report of the Interdepartmental Working Group on the Integration of Refugees in Ireland should form the framework for integration policy and be implemented. The establishment of a single organisational structure – within the overall framework of structures for asylum and immigration – for co-ordinating and implementing integration policy is one of the key recommendations of the working group. The Reception and Integration Agency will be the vehicle for implementing this recommendation and its establishment will facilitate a cohesive, co-ordinated approach to both the reception of asylum seekers and the integration of refugees. The agency will have responsibility for planning and co-ordinating the provision of services to both asylum seekers and refugees; co-ordinating and implementing integration policy for all refugees and persons who, though not refugees, are granted leave to remain; and responding to conflict crisis situations which result in relatively large numbers of refugees arriving in Ireland within a short period of time, for example, the Kosovar nationals who were invited here by the Government last year.