A total of 667 people made claims to be recognised as refugees fleeing persecution last month, the lowest monthly total since July 1999 when 571 claims were made.
A total of 892 people claimed refugee status in March of this year, with 947 applicants in February and 979 in January. For the past few years the monthly total has been running at around 1,000 claims per month.
The drop in figures may indicate that last January's High Court ruling that the immigrant parents of children born in Ireland could not automatically reside here is having an impact.
The authorities had believed that people were targeting the country to avail of the residency rules. In many cases people who eventually gained residency here as parents of Irish citizen children had originally entered the country as asylum-seekers but withdrew from the asylum channel after the births of their children, who are automatically entitled to citizenship.
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, the Department of Justice announced that it would no longer accept applications for residency from non-EU immigrant parents of Irish children.
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Justice said it was too early to draw significant conclusions from the figures.
The head of the Irish Refugee Council said the reduction was significant but that it was too early to identify any trends.