A special Cabinet meeting is to take place, probably on Thursday, to deal with Ireland's response to the refugee crisis.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny says he is not fixated on the number of refugees Ireland will take, despite Tánaiste Joan Burton saying it could be as much as 5,000.

He says there needs to be an assessment of where people would be housed, fed, educated and what communities are involved.

But Mr Kenny says Ireland cannot act alone and all of Europe needs to respond in a humanitarian way.

While Tánaiste Burton told the Pat Kenny Show here on Newstalk the number itself is not the most important issue.

And Ms Burton says allowing refugees coming to Ireland to get a job here would be the 'sensible thing to do'.

She says a lot of checks would have to be carried out before someone could take up a job.

But she thinks it is a good idea that they would not be reliant on the State for money.

The UN Refugee Agency says Europe needs to come up with a guaranteed relocation system for 200,000 people.

Its latest figures show a record 7,000 Syrian refugees arrived in Macedonia on Monday - while some 30,000 are on the Greek islands.