"WHEN the buzzer sounded at the door of the Irish Refugee Council in Arran Quay to let me in I thought I was alone. But eight people had materialised behind me and were making their way up the stairs.

A glum looking woman with a child sat on a lower stairs by the solicitors' office.

On the refugee council's floor, men queued patiently on the landing and in a minuscule waiting area. They had the closed down look of people who have grown used to waiting and waiting in official offices.

Not that the Irish Refugee Council is an official body. It is a non governmental and independent charity and its patron is the President, Mrs Robinson.

Inside its door, past that miniscule waiting room, its staff are on the phone trying to get through to Eastern Health Board welfare officers, explaining to people where they must go, giving them little maps with the route to the Department of Justice marked out and performing a myriad of other tasks.

A stately, majestic African woman walks through the office with a toddler who is crying for his bottle. The office manager takes the bottle and goes off to wash it. A man keeps opening the door, looking in angrily and retreating.

Most of the IRC "staff" are on FAS schemes, the Community Employment Scheme, or are volunteers. Their work is arduous and difficult. They deal with people who are under great stress. They work for very long hours.

There are some more or less properly paid staff and some of these are funded by the Department of Justice to provide a legal service. That funding is due to run out in July.

But by and large, the influx of refugees is being handled by people who are paid £20 a week plus their dole, or nothing.