Introduction

Ireland was traditionally a country of outward migration. However, this changed in the mid-1990s when the number migrating into Ireland became greater than the numbers emigrating (Christie, 2002a). During this period also, the numbers of people arriving as asylum seekers increased, with Mac Éinrí (2001) estimating that about 10 per cent of immigrants arriving in Ireland between 1995 and 2000 were asylum seekers. Prior to this less than 50 people per year sought asylum in Ireland (Cullen, 2000, cited in Christie, 2002a) with the state also occasionally welcoming small groups of programme refugees, following Ireland's signing of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1956. Since the mid-1990s the trends vis-a-vis the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees have fluctuated at different points in time. While Ireland's peripheral location at the Western edge of Europe means that it doesn't receive the numbers of asylum and international protection applicants that countries such as Greece and Italy do, it nonetheless has a steady number arriving and in recent years has developed its resettlement programme substantially through the establishment of the Irish Refugee Protection Programme. Due to the multiple challenges that these individuals and families face both pre and post migration, it is evident that many could benefit from a social work service. Indeed, Christie (2002a) argues that ‘with the arrival of asylum seekers in Ireland since the mid-1990s, social workers have been increasingly drawn into more explicit “policing” of the internal and external boundaries of the state’. He goes on to state that ‘this relatively small profession has access to material resources and expertise that may benefit asylum seekers’ (p. 14).

This chapter will explore the role of social work in relation to children and families from forced migration backgrounds in the Republic of Ireland. To begin with, it will set the context by discussing social work generally in the Irish context.