Community groups in Dublin are to benefit from an initiative by Dublin Bus to plough money back into the city.
Under the Dublin Bus Community Support Programme, €254,000 will be granted to 154 Dublin charities and non-profit groups. The money will help children, the elderly and disabled people, and give support to various sports projects.
Some of the groups to benefit include Rainbow Ireland (which works with young people coping with divorce, separation or bereavement), Headway (which aids people affected by brain injuries) and a Garda Youth Diversion Project which aims to engage young people who have been in trouble with the law.
"Every day, many groups and organisations do wonderful work that, outside the immediate community, goes largely unrecognised," said CIÉ chairman Dr John Lynch .
"If you think of it, people who run little football clubs keep people off the streets. They keep people away from drugs. We think that is a good thing."
Former Irish soccer international Niall Quinn, who is a patron of the support programme, said yesterday that initiatives which ploughed money back into the community were vitally important.
"Dublin Bus are not only giving money back into the community - I hope they are giving a message that Dublin Bus is there for them," he said.
"They are actually going in and doing great work in areas that we don't get to hear about a lot."
Quinn is currently taking part in a summer sports camp that is teaching sports skills to children from the docklands area of the capital.
The non-profit groups will be awarded various amounts of funding at a ceremony to be held in Dublin's Jurys Hotel on September 1st.