An Irish voluntary organisation yesterday donated £215,000 sterling to support 41 Irish youth and cultural organisations and groups working with disadvantaged Irish people in Britain.
The Irish Ambassador to Britain, Mr Edward Barrington, hosted a reception at the Irish Embassy in London for the annual award of grants made by the Irish Youth Foundation's British section.
Among the groups awarded grants were the London-based Cricklewood Homeless Concern, which received £15,000 to employ a youth worker, and Tir Conaill Harps GAA club in Glasgow, which was given £4,000 towards a drugs-awareness programme.
The foundation raises money through voluntary contributions, mainly from the Irish business community in Britain and from fundraising events. Over 11 years, it has raised nearly £2 million sterling for Irish youth projects.
Mr Jim O'Hara, chairman of the Irish Youth Foundation, said Irish youth groups and voluntary organisations were finding it increasingly difficult to access statutory funds because of cuts in social service funding in Britain and depended to a large extent on awards and grants provided by the Government.
Irish migration to Britain had not stopped, Mr O'Hara said, and there were still two clear groups of people emigrating to Britain - the qualified Irish and young people who had "missed out on all the Celtic Tiger success".
These young people often arrived in Britain with more complex problems than those who had arrived in the 1980s, and as a result, organisations were increasingly being asked to help Irish people with mental health, social and, in some cases, substance-abuse problems.