A new agency to provide services for asylum-seekers and refugees is due to start work within weeks. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is inviting representatives to join the board of the Reception and Integration Agency, which is due to start operating formally in April.
The invited board members will include the Bishop of Kerry, Dr William Murphy, as well as representatives from the African Refugee Network, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Irish Business Employers' Confederation and the Society of St Vincent de Paul. Representatives of government departments will also be appointed to the 10member board.
The agency will combine the functions of the Directorate for Asylum Support Services and the Refugee Agency. The Refugee Agency came under the aegis of the Department of Foreign Affairs. The new agency will come under the aegis of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and will eventually be set up on a statutory basis.
It is headed by Mr Noel Waters, a former ministerial adviser and press officer. Its functions will include planning and co-ordinating the provision of services to asylum-seekers and refugees and implementing integration policy for refugees or asylum-seekers granted "leave to remain" in the State. The membership of the agency's board is to be formally announced within weeks.
Meanwhile, recruitment of more than 150 staff in the immigration and asylum areas of the Department of Justice will begin this week. The new staff will work at the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, the Office of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and the Department's immigration and citizenship division. The new staff are part of a quota of 370 already announced.