Intercultural drop-in centres at risk of closing
By Aura McMenamin
THE WITHDRAWAL of funding of up to €80,000 this year for intercultural drop-in centres in Tallaght and Clondalkin will be a “tremendous loss” to asylum seekers in Direct Provision who use the service, according to a Clondalkin councillor.
The Department of Justice will not provide approximately €40k each for the centres for migrants in Tallaght and Clondalkin, which are run by the South Dublin County Partnership (SDCP) and are now at risk of closing by May.
The centre in Tallaght
The centres, based in the Mountain Park prefab buildings in Tallaght and the Oakfield Trust building in Clondalkin, supports migrants in making links with local organisations and services, and provides English language classes.
Independent Clondalkin councillor Francis Timmons told The Echo: “The Towers direct provision centre is right across from the drop in centre. It will be a tremendous loss for them.”
The Intercultural drop-in centre was established in Tallaght in 2003 and in Clondalkin in 2008, acting as a point of contact and support for migrants moving into the communities.
Since early 2010 the project has been managed by the SDCP.
Larry O’Neill, CEO of the Partnership, told the The Echo: “The centre costs a lot more than that to run. It will be a huge loss. In both centres we have a high number of volunteers assisting the migrant community.”
Mr O’Neill said that funding covered the costs of one paid staff member in each centre, rent, electricity, insurance and English language programmes. Four prefabs in Tallaght are leased to the partnership by Tallaght Gaelscol Colaiste de hIde, while the Clondalkin building is owned by the Oakfield Trust.
There isn’t a big pot of money
He continued: “All of our funds are restricted, there isn’t a big pot of money we can draw from to make up the costs. They might not be running by April or May.”
According to Mr. O’Neill, the centres could close by May.
Mr O’Neill said that the €40k was paid to South Dublin County Council by the Department which was then paid to the partnership for the centres in installments.
“It costs about €120k for each centre to run,” he said. “We had two full time staff members, rental, overhead and insurance costs.”
The Department of Justice said that in 2017, an open selection process was conducted to allocate funding under the National Integration Funding Programme to make the allocation of funding “fair, open and transparent”.
According to the Department the SDCP could not receive non-competitive funding as they used to.
The Department told The Echo: “South Dublin County Partnership (SDCP) applied for funding within this process to meet the running costs of the Intercultural Centres in Tallaght and Clondalkin but unfortunately were unsuccessful in what was a highly competitive process.”
According to the Department, funding of €150k was allocated to the council in 2017 over a two year period under the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund administered by the EU Funds Unit of the Department of Justice and Equality.
€2,280 was given to the SDCP under the Communities Integration Fund in 2017.
A final payment of €44,778 was made by the Department to SDCP for the centres in June 2017.
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