Some 200 pupils in a Galway national school walked out of classes yesterday as part of a national protest at the poor state of the school buildings.
The students of Scoil Mhuire of Briarhill outside Galway city took their action over the damp and unhealthy conditions in their rotting and rat-infested prefabs.
The national organisers said that 140,000 students, teachers and parents in 700 schools supported the day of protest about school facilities.
It was called by a new parents and teachers pressure group - TLC (Tuismitheoirí/Teagascóirí Le Chéile (parents and teachers together) - founded in Cork less than a month ago.
The protest at the lack of Government spending on school buildings and facilities was immediately challenged by the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey. He said his Department was spending €342 million this year on 140 large scale projects, plus smaller projects in 430 schools. The Minister added it was not possible to wipe out the accumulated deficit of generations in the lifetime of one Government.
The chairman of TLC, Mr Richie Cotter, said the children, teachers and parents had no alternative but to take to the streets because of the deplorable and disgraceful conditions of many school buildings.
Only €10 million was being spent this year on new buildings and the Department's approach was "time-wasting, too centralised and exorbitantly priced", he said.
In Ballinasloe, teachers said that they were being forced to work in damp, overcrowded prefabs, in corridors and in badly converted buildings.
In Drogheda, pupils could die if there was a fire in the 30-year-old prefabs used by Scoil Mhuire Fatima, one parent, Ms Jill Birch, warned.
She was amongst 500 people of all ages who protested, demanding €1 million to bring their school up to modern standards.
The Fine Gael spokesperson on education, Ms Olwyn Enright TD, said the action of parents, teachers and children was borne out of sheer frustration.
"The School Building Programme, published in January of this year, was a major disappointment to schools right around the country. In the lead up to last year's general election, endless promises were made by candidates from the governing parties. These promises have not been delivered upon."
The Labour Party education spokesperson, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, said the level of anger and frustration among teachers and pupils was "unprecedented".
Sinn Féin spokesperson on education, Mr Seán Crowe stated: "It is nothing less than a national disgrace that parents, teachers and students have had to come together to campaign for rights that are so fundamentally basic as safe and secure facilities for education."