A dilapidated primary school has refused to allow election officials to use the building for next week's referendum in protest at delays in getting new premises.
Parents of the 82 pupils at St Finian's NS in Clonard, Co Meath, are to bring their children to class as usual on polling day in breach of the law which states they cannot refuse to hand the school over for voting. More than 1,000 voters registered to use the polling station are now being rerouted to another national school at Killyon 11 miles away.
The returning officer for Co Meath said she made the decision to move for safety reasons. "It was made quite clear to me that the parents were going to present their children for classes," Mrs Máire Tehan said.
"I could bar them from the school. I could have a force of guards out. But the school is on the side of the main Dublin-Galway road. I don't want incidents."
The parents, who staged a placard protest outside the school yesterday, are angry that they are expected to give co-operation on the referendum to the Department of the Environment when the Department of Education has failed to deliver on a promise to build a new school.
"We applied for a minor works grant, but were told the school was beyond repair," said the board of management chairman, Father Brendan Ferris.
"The new school was sanctioned on January 29th, 1999, and nothing has happened since."
In the Dail on Wednesday the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, said only that work on the school would proceed "as soon as possible". In the meantime, he was "prepared to approve interim measures to address urgent health and safety issues".