February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
While in New York, Cowen will meet with the city’s working committee on immigration issues and unveil details of the Irish government’s annual grants to immigrant support groups around the U.S.
Cowen is expected to allocate what one well-placed source described as a “fairly significant” increase in the total level of grant aid.
The grant total last year was $356,000 divided among a dozen advocacy groups and support centers.
While in New York, Cowen will also deliver Ireland’s annual address to the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly.
In Boston, Cowen will be presented with a Solas Award by the Irish Immigration Center, which is marking its 15th anniversary on Friday, Sept. 24, with a special dinner. More than 1,000 people are expected to attend.
Cowen is in line to move from foreign affairs in an Irish cabinet reshuffle at the end of this month. It is expected that he will become the new minister for finance.
But it is his last days in his current job that will be of prime interest to Irish immigrant advocates.
It has been traditionally the foreign minister’s task to liaise with Irish immigration centers and advocates, and to come bearing the annual financial aid from Dublin.
Earlier this year, Cowen announced the setting up of a new “dedicated unit” in his department that will coordinate the Irish government’s relationships with Irish emigrant communities in the U.S. and around the world.
He also indicated that there would be an increase in the Irish government’s annual stipend to the U.S. immigration centers.
The Irish government initially set aside $300,000 for the Irish centers in for the current 2003-04 fiscal year. When the allocation was formally unveiled in September of last year, the actual figure was higher, at $355,000.
That figure is expected to be surpassed by a considerable margin this week.
At the same time, the new allocation will again fall short of the kind of sums recommended in the report of the government’s Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants, which was made public in August 2002. That report recommended that the then $300,000 annual grant to U.S. centers be increased to