A Limerick schoolboy, who yesterday celebrated his ninth birthday, had a lucky escape when part of his classroom roof collapsed around him. Conor Beatty escaped serious injury during the incident which happened in his second class prefab in St Nessan's school in Mungret on Thursday afternoon.
Jason Harney (8) was also lucky to escape serious injury when two large sections of plasterboard crashed down from the ceiling.
There were 27 other second-class pupils in the prefab at the time along with their teacher, Ms Patricia Flynn, who was described as "severely shocked" after the incident.
Yesterday, Ms Margaret Beatty said her son was lucky to be celebrating his birthday when he could have been in hospital.
"The plank grazed off his shoulder and arm. He got a terrible fright and went really pale afterwards but, thankfully, he's okay. We feel very fortunate that we're not in the hospital today and we are able to celebrate his birthday as planned," she said.
"The most important thing is that nobody was seriously hurt, however we could have been looking at a very different scenario. No one should expect this to happen in Ireland in 2003. No civil servant would sit in a building where the roof was in danger of falling, so why should we expect our children to do so? It's just not on," she added.
Parents and teachers at St Nessan's, which has 770 pupils, have been campaigning for years to have the sub-standard and overcrowded conditions at the school improved.
Before the last general election, parents say they were promised that work would begin on five permanent classrooms but to date no work has started and 139 pupils are being taught in prefab accommodation.
Parents last night accused the Government of failing to deliver on yet another pre-election promise. "Our children have been put in physical danger by the Department of Education and that's what it boils down to," said Ms Denise King, chairwoman of St Nessan's Parents Association.
Mr Stephen Cahill, the school principal, said: "We have been campaigning for new classrooms since 1997. We want proper facilities, basic facilities of permanent classrooms."
Meanwhile, parents of children in prefab accommodation have been told not to send them back to school until they had been notified that it was safe.