COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, March 11, 2019

HEADED ITEM NO. 12

INTEGRATION STRATEGY

South Dublin County Council’s inaugural Integration Strategy, ‘An Inclusive County’, came to the end of its life cycle at the end of 2017. Through this working document we sought to enhance the lives of all who live and work in the County and to enable all communities to fully participate in society. We continue to deliver on the actions that were identified in the first strategy.

With the launch of the National Integration Strategy ‘A Blueprint for the Future’ in 2017 specific roles for Local Authorities were identified, one of those being that “integration strategies will be updated”.

‘A More Inclusive County’ 2019-2023 is South Dublin County Council’s second Integration Strategy, as part of our development process the following steps were taken:

• A review of the actions under the Council's previous Integration Strategy was undertaken to determine where there was successful delivery of actions, and also to examine what actions were not delivered and the reasons for non-delivery. This review has informed the development and direction of proposed actions for the new Strategy.
• The National Migrant Integration Strategy and a discussion document produced by the Immigrant Council of Ireland ‘Keeping it Local: Discussion document and proposed actions for Local Authorities on developing local migrant integration strategies’ have both significantly informed the new draft Strategy as well as providing guidance in determining possible actions for inclusion;
• South Dublin County Partnership developed a questionnaire to gather feedback from key stakeholders in this area - the questionnaire was published on www.sdcc.ie and was also distributed to South Dublin Migrant Integration Forum, local Elected Representatives, the Local Community Development Committee, the Public Participation Network and others to ensure as wide a response as possible;
• Direct consultation was undertaken with South Dublin Migrant Integration Forum to gather their input on the proposed actions for the draft Strategy;
• Internal consultation across relevant sections and departments of the Council has also been undertaken to identify possible actions to support migrant integration in the various work streams of the Council.
• A consultant was engaged to carry out a research piece to profile South Dublin County; to investigate best practice for developing an integration strategy and to examine the EU, national and local context required for the strategy.

The Council is committed to giving migrants and those from migrant backgrounds equal opportunities to participate and integrate into Irish society therefore one of the objectives under this strategy is the establishment of a monitoring group that will report on the progress of the implementation of the 56 actions set out in the document.

The Social and Community SPC were given regular updates on the progress of the strategy and the draft strategy was recommended for approval by Council at the February 2019 meeting of the SPC.  Accordingly, the attached draft strategy is now being presented to the Council for adoption.