The future of a women's and children’s shelter in Tallaght will have to be reviewed if the State continues to refuse to fund it.
The Respond! housing association, which established Cuan Álainn three years ago, said it is providing a service for the State but cannot afford to continue to pay for it from its own resources.
The association provides accommodation for over 4,000 families and runs one other similar shelter in Limerick.
It said that that more than one-third of Cuan Álainn's residents are referred by statutory bodies while the remainder come from State-funded shelters elsewhere in the Republic.
It said it has funded the service from its own resources at a cost of nearly €1m over the last three years, but that it cannot continue to do so without State support, so the State must face up to its responsibilities.
Elaine Burnett, manager of Respond! Cuan Álainn said male-on-female violence is "classless and ageless and respects neither location nor ethnicity, women of means or women of no means".
She added that it is "nothing short of scandalous" that the association is funding the refuge from its own resources in a time of acute shortage of suitable accommodation in Dublin.
Ms Burnett said:"That housing charities like ours, have so few resources to do so, simply adds to the injury".
Ned Brennan, Chief Operations Officer of Respond! said if the Child and Family Agency rejects its current application for funding in the way State bodies have done in the past, the organisation will have no option but to review Cuan Álainn's future next January.
