The Health and Safety Authority is to investigate conditions at a primary school in Co Kildare at the request of teaching staff.
The move comes as scores of national schools throughout the State received news in the past week that proposed new buildings and/or modernisation programmes had been postponed because of the education cutbacks. The recent estimates cut funding for primary school building projects by 4 per cent.
The INTO has confirmed the school contacted the authority because of "the urgent need for essential repairs".
An inspector is expected to visit the school within the next fortnight. One source at the 250-pupil school said the premises formed "an accident waiting to happen. If we were a nightclub we'd have been closed down ages ago," she said.
The INTO says the authorities at Coralstown National School, Co Westmeath, may also contact the HSA after learning that plans for a new premises had been shelved - despite an explicit pre-election promise that work would begin this September.
The local INTO executive member, Ms Helen O'Gorman, said the 71 pupils and three staff there must continue to use outdoor toilets. The school, which dates back to 1932, has no storage room and no staff room.The classrooms are small and crowded.
Parents say every hour about 700 cars pass the school - which is fronting on to a main road.
"We must consider all options to give the pupils some kind of decent and safe accommodation," Ms O'Gorman said.
The HSA tends to focus on safety in the workplace but the INTO says schools are turning increasingly to the authority, as frustration builds about the state of dozens of primary schools.
The number of complaints to the HSA from educational institutions has increased dramatically in recent years. Last year the authority conducted 170 inspections on primary schools and other education sites, compared with 25 three years ago.
The INTO says one Donegal school which called in the HSA was speedily given permission for a new premises.
The union says other schools are now following that example by citing health and safety legislation in their request to the Department for new accommodation.
The Health, Safety and Welfare at Work Act is designed to make workplaces safer.
It provides that employers should, in so far as is reasonably practicable, protect the safety, health and welfare of all who work for them.
The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, will publish a revised list of buildings/modernisation works in January. He has acknowledged concerns about the state of many schools but he says he lacks the funds required to change things quickly.
He hopes to reach agreement with the Department of Finance on a rolling five-year modernisation programme for schools in the new year.