More towns are to be asked to accommodate Kosovan refugees as part of proposals the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, will put to Government to take in a second large group from the war in Kosovo.
Tomorrow a fifth flight carrying Kosovan refugees will arrive at Farranfore airport, in Kerry, bringing the number in the State to over 700.
Two more flights will arrive at Cork Airport in the next fortnight, bringing the total to around 1,000.
This was the number the Government agreed to take early last month.
However, Ms O'Donnell has said repeatedly that the Government will accept more refugees, most recently during her visit to Macedonia last week.
Following the successful arrival of groups of refugees in Killarney, Co Kerry, Millstreet, Co Cork, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, Baltinglass, Co Wicklow, and Kildare town over the past month, the Government is planning to ask other provincial towns to take their share.
Some of this week's arrivals will go to Tralee, and some of next week's to Waterford city.
Among the towns being considered for a second round of refugees are Wexford and Castle blayney, Co Monaghan, both of which have received groups of Romanian asylum-seekers.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, said yesterday that a supplementary estimate for £6.39 million would be moved to cover the costs of providing for refugees from the conflict in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, a group of asylum-seekers and Catholic activists protested outside the Dail yesterday at the Government's campaign to recruit 10,000 Irish workers living abroad at a time when there are thousands of skilled asylum-seekers in Ireland.
The Pilgrim House Community, a Wexford-based Catholic group which runs a cafe for refugees and asylum-seekers in Dublin, organised the protest.
Its founder, Ms Helena O'Leary, said asylum-seekers in Ireland were being forced to live in an "undignified and fearful" way because they had no idea how their applications to remain in the State were proceeding and they were not allowed to work.
She said it was "not part of the psyche and culture", particularly of Africans, not to work. She pointed to a recent survey which showed that nearly 80 per cent of asylum-seekers are people with professional qualifications and skills.
She indicated asylum-seekers on the protest who were a bank manager and an airline pilot, and said she knew three asylum-seeking architects.
One young Somali had proposed attending the protest in chains, she said, because he felt "like a prisoner, with no right to work, no right to speak, no right to make his voice heard."
The Government's policy towards asylum-seekers was "effectively taking away their human rights by pushing them out to the edge of society, where they're living in a kind of underworld."