Dublin today joined the intercultural cities programme to promote the integration of different cultures into the city.
Over a hundred people gathered in Dublin’s City Hall as Lord Mayor Andrew Montague, and Robert Palmer, director of culture, cultural and natural heritage at the Council of Europe, signed the agreement.
There were almost 74,000 non-Irish nationals living in the Dublin area in 2006, with almost half of those living in the inner city.
As a result of signing the agreement, Dublin City Council’s office of integration is reviewing its strategy on integration, which was written in 2008.
Declan Hayden, from the Council’s office of integration, said the updated strategy should be released in the next year and was evolving with the arrival of new cultural groups in Dublin.
“We need to review that going forward and put in then some key practice issues around key themes like social, cultural economics, education,” he said.
“I don’t ever rely too much on hard core written plans because the work has to happen and keep happening,” Mr Hayden added.
Dublin has joined a network of 25 cities in the programme including Oslo, Lewisham, Berlin and Copenhagen focused on managing the integration of migrants and minorities.
Mr Montague said while no city had dealt with integrating migrants and minorities perfectly, many cities had positive aspects that Dublin could learn from.
“People feel safe and confident when they come to live in Dublin and we can’t afford to lose that,” Mr Montague said. “It’s something that we have to constantly work on.”
Mr Palmer stressed the importance of a strategy for helping integrate minorities.
“We are seeing now in front of our eyes the consequences of neglecting to deal with the impact of international migration proactively.”