The Government announced today it has given a grant of €105,000 to the Irish Refugee Council (IRC) to fund core activities next year.
The money will be used primarily to assist with staff, accommodation and information technology costs involved in its work with asylum seekers and refugees.
Mr Peter O'Mahony, IRC chief executive, welcomed the funding but stressed there were many other organisations working with refugees in Ireland still in desperate need of Government assistance.
We do depend, to a large extent, on sources other than the Government," he said. "And we are also acutely aware that most of the smaller NGOs, many of whom do great work with refugees and asylum-seekers in cities and towns throughout Ireland, received no Irish Exchequer funding and are heavily dependent on a grant from the European Refugee Fund."
The IRC was established in 1992 as a non-governmental organisation and brings together a large number of groups as well as individual members who work with asylum seekers and refugees.
Latest figures suggest the sharp decline in the numbers seeking asylum in Ireland is continuing. With 1,238 new applications from July to September, it is ranked 15th out of 36 industrialised countries worldwide.
France topped the league with 16,000 applications during that three-month period, followed by Britain, the United States and Germany.
PA