The Government was this year allocating €12 million for the Irish community abroad, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern told the Dáil.
"This represents an increase of 45 per cent on 2005 and is 12 times greater than the allocation in 1997 when the Government came into office," he added.
Mr Ahern said that the interests and needs of the Irish community in Britain continued to be a matter of particular importance for the Government. Most of the available funding was directed to organisations engaged in a wide range of community-care activities of benefit to Irish people.
Increased funding was having a tangible and positive effect, with support extending beyond the major cities to reach Irish community groups in many towns.
He said there had been a dramatic decrease in the number of Irish people homeless in Britain, according to a recent report. A Simon Community official had said that the number of Irish homeless in the six inner-city boroughs had fallen from 600 in 1999 to 100 this year.
Fine Gael spokesman Bernard Allen asked if the Minister shared his disappointment that proposed legislation to help our emigrants in the United States had run into the sand.
Agreeing it was a disappointment, Mr Ahern said the Government was keeping a close eye on the situation. "The mid-term elections have knocked all legislation off course," said Mr Ahern.
