Conditions are so bad in some primary schools that three schools are having legal cases against the Department of Education prepared for them.
Mr Ernest Cantillon, a Cork solicitor who acted in the Kathy Sinnott case, has been asked by Teagaiscóirí Le Chéile (TLC), an education lobby group, to prepare three cases concerning rundown school buildings for court proceedings.
Meanwhile, a survey by The Irish Times of 62 out of 137 primary schools on the Department of Education's emergency repair list, released in May, has revealed the extent of disrepair in children's classrooms.
Outdoor toilets, faulty electrical systems, sewage problems, unsafe playgrounds and severe restrictions on space have been frustrating teachers for many years, while putting children's health at risk.
The review of the list makes for depressing reading. Children with special needs are being taught in corridors and cloakrooms. In SN Seosamh Naofa, Carrabane, Co Galway, a cloakroom with poor ventilation and light is the resource room. The staff room is also a cloakroom. There is no room for PE.
In Limerick, scaffolding around St John's School stops rubble from falling on pupils' heads. TLC has called the Department's latest repair list "a cynical PR exercise".
Despite being mentioned on May 19th's "aspirational" list of emergency repairs on the Department's website, principal Mr Richard Bowles, of SN Seosamh Naofa, said: "Nothing has happened, just letters from a TD to say we are on the list but an official in the Department has told me that nothing will happen for the next two or three years because there is no money."
The Department said no official had made such a statement.
In response to the crisis, the Mayor of Dublin, Mr Dermot Lacey, has invited the education partners to a meeting in the Mansion House on July 1st to discuss the crisis. Among those attending will be Kathy Sinnott of The Hope Project, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO), Educate Together and Gaelscoileanna. The Children's Rights Alliance, which has said that decrepit national schools are a human rights issue, has also been invited, along with the Church of Ireland Board of Education, the National Parents' Council and the Irish Primary Principals' Network.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said last night: "There are local elections coming up next year and no doubt many other people between now and next June will use the school building programme as a political platform."
The collapse of a roof at St Nessan's School in Mungret, Limerick, last week, has prompted the INTO's general-secretary, Mr John Carr, to call on the Minister to urgently address the "emergency" through increased funding of €1.5 billion for substandard primary schools.
The Irish Times survey uncovered widespread discouragement among principals, who have seen generations of children spending their primary school days in prefabs, some dating to the 1960s. There was also confusion among at least a dozen principals, who did not understand why their schools were posted on the website, when the work had been completed as long ago as last year, in some cases.
"Adding after-the-fact information to the website in this manner misled many schools," said Mr Carr. He described the list as "creating an illusion". However, the Department never claimed that the website was intended to list only "new" projects. It was simply a list of emergency repairs which had occurred or would occur. It was issued in the interest of transparency, it said.