Noel Ahern
Question:196 Mr. N. Ahern asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment if his Department gives any financial assistance to groups servicing emigrant organisations, in particular, to a group (details supplied) in Dublin.
Written Answers. - Grants to Voluntary Organisations.
My Department allocates assistance to voluntary organisations in Britain which provide advisory and welfare services for Irish emigrants there. The allocation of this assistance is based on the recommendations of DÍON — the advisory committee on the welfare of Irish emigrants in Britain.
The DÍON committee was set up, by the then Department of Labour, in 1984 to advise and report on emigrant welfare services in Britain. It makes recommendations on the provision of financial assistance to organizations to employ professional workers to assist with the welfare problems of Irish emigrants there. In 1993 an amount of £500,000 was provided.
For some years now, the grants made on the advice of DÍON have been confined to British-based organisations with one long-standing exception — the specific group referred to in the Deputy's question.
That group was advised last year that the then Minister had accepted the recommendation of the DÍON Committee that the monies available were more pressingly needed by the voluntary agencies in Britain and he did not propose providing further grant aid for voluntary agencies operating in Ireland.
I do not propose to depart from this policy position and therefore I will not be making funds available to the group in question in 1994.