Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 June 2018
115. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if an evaluation of the Irish Refugee protection programme on the ground has been undertaken in the counties in which resettlement has taken place or is taking place; if not, if there are plans to do so; and if so, the way in which the work is procured. [27291/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy is aware, the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP) commenced in September 2015 with the first significant tranche of protection applicants only arriving in Ireland under in June 2016, due largely to delays in the establishment of hotspots and related arrangements overseas by the beneficiary States. Large scale resettlements in counties therefore only began in March 2017. It is too early to undertake an evaluation of the current resettlement programme as the resettlement process has not been underway for sufficiently long and the Programme remains in a heavily operational phase.
The IRPP constantly re-evaluates its operations and fine-tunes elements of the Programme as required. The Deputy should be aware that a provisional analysis of previous resettlements, prior to the establishment of the IRPP, is now underway. These resettlements employed the same model as currently used by the IRPP. This evaluation is in the early stages and is being undertaken on a contract basis.
Once this process has been concluded, which should be by the end of 2018, a determination will be made on future steps including the scope of any further evaluation process and how this might best be undertaken.
