An £865,000 education and training project in west Tallaght, which the Taoiseach and Tanaiste will open today, already has a waiting list for the 300 places on its courses.
"All our classes are bursting at the seams," said Ms Liz Waters, manager of the centre, An Cosan in Jobstown.
The project received a £600,000 Government grant towards capital costs. It is built on land donated by South Dublin County Council. It is now seeking core funding of £300,000 a year to run its courses, a creche and pre-school education.
The most popular course, according to Ms Waters, is computer studies. Eircom has donated a computer room with 14 computers.
Participants are offered two years of education and training in a variety of areas. But Ms Waters believes computer literacy is a key issue facing community and adult education.
"In Ireland we have a huge problem over basic literacy," she said, "but the way we are going, if we are not careful, we will create another huge area of illiteracy and that's computer illiteracy. Here at An Cosan we are trying to create a programme which will combine basic literacy with computer literacy."
An Cosan was conceived and planned by the community-run Shanty Educational Project, in Brittas, Co Dublin, which has moved to the Jobstown site. The Shanty was started by Dr Ann Louise Gilligan and Dr Katherine Zappone, and has provided adult education and personal development courses for more than 2,000 Tallaght people since 1986.
The huge demand for courses at the new centre demonstrates "the need for Government to back community education", said Ms Waters. She said she was pleading for core funding from the State "to allow us not to put all our energies into fund-raising".
Courses at An Cosan include community leadership, childcare, personal development, estate management, gender studies, social analysis and training for people working with drug addicts and their families.
Of her hopes for An Cosan she said: "My dream is that it will be a community university. That's what's happening here."