This website provides information about the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI), who we are, the services we provide and the work we do. It also provides important information for migrants about Ireland’s immigration system, laws and policies.

Featured Publication

The ICI launches Mentoring Programme for Young People with Migrant Backgrounds 

‘Ambassadors for Change’ is an Immigrant Council of Ireland programme which will be run by young people, for young people. Under the programme, volunteers aged 18 to 30 – who are, themselves, from migrant backgrounds – will be trained as ‘ambassadors’ and will then be matched with participating secondary schools. In these schools, they will be available to provide informal advice, guidance and support to students from migrant backgrounds – and to encourage them to do well, both in an academic and a social context.

Hailuu Netsiyanwa from Zimbabwe who is a volunteer ambassador pictured with Children's TV Presenter Diana Bunici originally from Moldova. Pic:Marc O'Sullivan

Annual Review of the Immigrant Council of Ireland

The ICI has published the 2011 Annual Review of the Immigrant Council of Ireland, commemorating its work from 2001- 2011.To read and download the Annual Review, please click on the following link:

2011 Annual Review of the Immigrant Council of Ireland

Asylum seeking victims of human trafficking in Ireland:Legal and practical challenges

The Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) received funding from the UN Global initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN GIFT) to provide legal representation to victims of human trafficking in Ireland.The ICI has invested in and developed an expertise in the provision of holistic legal representation for women and girls who have been subjected to human trafficking for sexual exploitation in the State. The ICI has a number of open legal cases that are at different stages of the Irish immigration and criminal investigation/prosecution processes. These cases involve women who have been trafficked to Ireland for the purposes of sexual exploitation, with many of them having been trafficked and exploited in other countries on route to Ireland. In the majority of cases, the clients had filed an asylum application before or after being referred to the ICI for legal representation, and they are the focus of the present report.

To read and download the report, please click on the following link:

Taking Racism Seriously: Migrants’ Experiences of Violence, Harassment and Anti-social Behaviour in the Dublin Area

The report of the racism research commissioned by the ICI and undertaken by Professor Bryan Fanning (University College Dublin) has been launched on October 4^th 2011, in the Civic Offices at Wood Quay.

The research, funded by Dublin City Council, explored the experiences of people accessing the ICI’s anti-racism support services, a number of case studies and focus group interviews with Asian healthcare workers, Dublin Bus drivers and the LUAS’s revenue protection officers

To read and download the research, please click on the following link:

Taking Racism Seriously. PDF.

The Pathways to Parental Leadership project is an initiative of the ICI, funded by the Network of European Foundations for Innovative Cooperation through the European Programme for Integration and Migration. The project aims to facilitate migrant parents’ involvement in the school lives of their children. The overall objective of the project is to improve the quality of the education of migrant children and ultimately to strengthen the voice of migrants in the community. The toolkit is being aimed at schools and gives them advice on how to encourage parental involvement and meet the needs of a diverse society. It has been piloted in five schools around the Dublin area and was launched on 13^th September 2011.

Please click here to view and download the Pathways to Parental Leadership Toolkit.

Please click here to view and download the Supplemental Materials for the Toolkit.

Living in Limbo 

The Immigrant Council of Ireland has launched its policy paper, "Living in Limbo - Migrants' Experiences of Applying for Naturalisation in Ireland".  This research, written by ICI Senior Solicitor Catherine Cosgrave, documents the stories of migrants who have applied, or wish to apply, for Irish citizenship, examines the process and compares the process here to those in other countries of immigration.