Ireland will continue to be a very wealthy country despite all the recent talk of “doom and gloom”, Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan said today.
Mr Lenihan was speaking at the launch of a new research project into the experiences of young immigrants living in Ireland.
He said Ireland’s economic success was due in no small way to our migrant workforce, particularly in areas such as the health services, and he said it was important they continued to make a contribution to ensure Ireland remained a wealthy nation.
Professor Robbie Gilligan, associate director of the Children’s Research Centre (CRC) at Trinity College Dublin said the findings of the first national study of young immigrants, the Immigrant Youth Research Project, would be of interest to public and voluntary organisations working with young people.
Although there are around 120,000 young people living in Ireland who were not born in the State, immigration tends to be treated as "adults only", with employment and the economy centre stage in discussions of the issue.
Mr Lenihan said Ireland had taken a strong approach to integration and it was his hope we would not make the same mistakes as other countries by proving we lived up to our reputation as an honest and open nation.
The new project, a co-initiative of Integrating Ireland and the CRC, plans to recruit and train young immigrants from around the country to help run 16 focus groups in various centres. Around 150 young people will be involved with the aim of exploring the experience of those aged 15-18 from a range of cultural backgrounds and living in different parts of the country.
Two 15-year-olds told those gathered at the launch of hopes for their futures in Ireland. MerryJoy Itambo, who is originally from DR Congo, said that as a small girl she had wanted to be famous and have a glamorous life. Now she hopes to do well at school and eventually study nursing at “a top college like Trinity”.
Algerian-born Abdul-Rahmen Zeroug said that he hoped the results of the study would make politicians aware of young immigrants in Ireland and not just of adults.
This first phase of the project will form part of a series of studies, with the next stage investigating the perspectives of "local" young people in their relations with non-nationals of the same age.
Director of Integrating Ireland Aki Stavrou, said one of the Government’s core aims was the promotion of a good model of immigrant integration to achieve “a fair, just and inclusive society”.
He said the experiences of immigrant youth as newcomers to Irish society would in many ways influence the long term story of immigration in Ireland.
Integrating Ireland, which was set up in 2001, is a network of 204 organisations working with immigrants around the country working to promote equality and the full integrations of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers in Ireland.
According to the most recent Census there are just over 30,000 people of African and Asian origin aged under 19 living in the State. Around 12,000 children under the age of 14 from Central and Eastern Europe also reside here.