A special cabinet meeting's being held this morning to discuss Ireland's response to the refugee crisis.

The government's promising to energise every possible state agency to respond to the crisis - but may not sign off on a fixed number of refugees to accept.

It comes as the CEO of Concern says it is "irresponsible" to fund the refugee crisis response from existing aid budgets.

Dominic MacSorley says the funding shortfall for the UN's Syria Appeal is "unacceptable and inhumane".

He's cautioning against the use of aid budgets to fund the refugee crisis in Europe:

The Cabinet meets at 7am to consider all the various plans being drawn up by individual government departments and state agencies.

It's hoped the discussion will also lead to an agreement on the number of refugees Ireland might be able to take.

But a Government spokesperson says the focus won't be on the numbers, but rather on putting together the right response, with details such as accommodatoin, education and financial assistance set to be discussed.

Either way, any plan agreed today will not be final - and depending on an EU response, ministers will have to revisit the issue in the coming weeks.