Many children in junior infant classes in new communities are in prefab or temporary buildings and they are lucky if a "real purpose-built classroom comes along" before they reach sixth class, the Dáil was told.
Labour's education spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan said that there were thousands of families "who do not know if their children will have a school place to go to next September. There are thousands of other families who worry that their child will go into a class with 30 or more others and will not be able to cope."
Ms O'Sullivan was speaking at a joint Fine Gael Labour Private members' motion calling for the Government to ensure a place was provided for all children old enough to go to primary school next September and to set out a timetable for the reduction of class sizes.
Fine Gael spokeswoman Olwyn Enright said that the conditions in many schools were seriously deficient. But Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said that since 2000 some €2.5 billion had been spent in school building and modernisation projects and this year alone more than 1,100 schools would see the benefit of investment in their physical surroundings. "We are reversing decades of under-investment and responding to emerging needs."
The Minister said there had been a great many improvements in the delivery of school building projects including devolving funding to local management for smaller projects and developing a standard school design for eight and 16-classroom schools, which saved on design fees. The Minister had also recently outlined plans to deliver 23 new post-primary schools and four primary schools through the public-private partnership process.
