The main purpose of the Communities Integration Fund is to fund actions by community organisations to promote integration in their local communities. It is intended to provide funding and support for communities across Ireland to play a greater role in promoting integration by providing practical support to facilitate social inclusion among the migrant population.
The Communities Integration Fund was established by the Office for Promotion of Migrant Integration (OPMI) in response to Action 51 of The Migrant Integration Strategy – A Blueprint for the Future, which states:
“A Communities Integration Fund will be developed to support actions by local communities throughout Ireland to promote the integration of migrants and refugees”
The Fund was formerly announced at the launching of the Migrant Integration Staregy in February 2017. On launching the Fund, the Minister with special responsibility for Equality, Integration and Immigration, David Stanton T.D., noted:
Assessment Criteria
Applications are assessed by OPMI with an eye to the following criteria:
> Voluntary input
> Value for money
> Cost effectiveness
> Added value to existing project(s) or activities
> Number of migrants hoped to be reached
> Geographical scope of project/activity
> Whether activity/project will have support of a local network
(The list above is indicative. Criteria may change from year to year depending in accordance with current OPMI priorities).
Monitoring
From the outset, it was recognised that a ‘light touch’ in terms of monitoring would need to be applied, due both the size of individual amounts being allocated and the potential administrative limitations of small community groups. However, prior to receiving payment, each organisation is required to complete and sign a grant agreement setting out a number of conditions governing the issuance of the grants. These conditions were mainly to ensure that funding was used for the purposes intended and to allow OPMI to gather useful information which might inform future funding programmes.
As with all expenditure within the Department of Justice, the Communities Integration Fund is open to both internal and external audit through the Department of Justice Internal Audit Division and the Comptroller and Auditor General respectively.
Use the links below to find out more about how funding is being used each year.
Communities Integration Fund 2017
Communities Integration Fund 2018
Communities Integration Fund 2019
