Applications to the North's Community Relations Council for EU assistance for community projects have far outstripped the funds available to the council. The overwhelming demand yesterday forced the CRC to close the deadline for applications prematurely.
The European Directorate's Peace II programme provides about £7 million sterling to promote reconciliation in areas affected by civil disturbances.
The director of the CRC's European programme, Mr Jim Dennison, said that requests for funding had already exceeded £20 million. "We have approximately £7 million to spend, which sounds like quite a lot of money, but when run over a four-year programme across Northern Ireland, it's not actually that much . . . We will be able to support a number of good, solid projects, but when you have a limited budget you can only fund a limited number of people," he told BBC Radio Ulster.
"Peace I [the first such EU-sponsored programme] was very successful in many ways, where it helped to stimulate interest with community and voluntary-sector organisations in addressing things like division, diversity and conflict, and this is building upon that work, and that's why there is the demand."
The influx of applications was "very encouraging" given a certain "defeatist" attitude in some quarters towards peace and reconciliation in the face of recent interface violence, Mr Dennison insisted.
More money may become available under Peace II. However, because the North has lost its priority one status, the funding may be on a much lower level.
Community groups have expressed disappointment that Peace II was mainly aimed at job-creation schemes rather than programmes to improve social structures in deprived areas.