Leabgarrow National School on Aranmore Island in Donegal was boarded up last September and its 37 children sent up the road to the school at the other end of the island while a decision was taken on its future.

At the time it was in an extremely poor state. Built in 1908 on a site of less than half an acre, the children were all being taught in one room, with the second used as a staff and remedial room.

The roof was in bad condition with the slates regularly falling off in the high Atlantic winds so common on the Donegal coast. Dampness had been a serious problem for years with the ceiling crumbling in several places. The heating gave trouble on a regular basis, and the ancient heating pipes were completely corroded.

The windows were rotten with only the putty holding them together in places, and were at risk of blowing in during a storm. There was no proper floor covering making for a very dusty atmosphere. Rats were a problem, particularly in the winter. There was no hot water or proper drying facilities.

The schoolyard is small, sloped and in very poor condition. The INTO representative who examined the school in 1996 warned that the surrounding wall, which was cracked and dangerous due to being hit by lorries and tractors trying to negotiate the narrow bend in the road beyond it, could easily collapse on a child at play.

The chairman of the board of management, Father Martin Doohan, who only came to the island eight months ago, is astonished that the school does not qualify for disadvantaged status. This means that the parents have to undertake the onerous task of raising 15 per cent of the cost of the required extensive refurbishment themselves.

More than 90 per cent of the island's adult population - a high proportion of them older people - live on pensions, social welfare and dole payments. Father Doohan wonders if the failure to obtain disadvantaged status was due to the high level of house ownership, a legacy of earlier times when money was more plentiful because of a once prosperous fishing industry.

He has just returned from fund-raising trips to Donegal exiles in the US and Scotland. A group of exiles in London has also sent money. When they allowed their children to be transferred on a temporary basis last September, the islanders thought it would be to allow work to start on a refurbished school. So far all they have heard from the Department of Education is that the one tender on offer is not acceptable.