Teachers at the Cork School of Music may not be returning to work next month over a dispute about a €60 million development at the historic institution.
This was promised in public-private partnership deal announced by the Government in April 2001 but has since been put on hold. The Department of Education says the planned development has not been shelved, but that there remain considerable problems over funding, including concerns over EU law.
The teachers, represented by the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI), have warned that unless the Government acts on its promise, they will consider industrial action.
With 4,000 students, including 80 full-time degree students, staff at the school are demanding the new facilities be built immediately or they will no longer be able to cope.
"If this project does not proceed immediately, then this Government will, in effect, be pleading guilty to a spectacular act of cultural vandalism in presiding over the shutdown of music education in Cork," the TUI said.
The students and staff moved out of the old school on Union Quay in September, 2001, to allow preparatory work to go ahead on the site. Since then, the school has been run from 17 different locations in the city, including the old Moore's Hotel building on Morrison's Island.
The old school is no longer usable, according to its director, Dr Geoffrey Spratt.
Last March, an Oireachtas committee heard that it was "unlikely" the school's new facilities would be built in time for Cork's tenure as European Capital of Culture in 2005 as it had not received the official sanction of the Department of Education.
Over 500 staff from the Cork School of Music, the Cork Institute of Technology and the Crawford School of Art and Design held a one-day stoppage in May.
The Cork School of Music was established in 1878 and was the first municipal music school established in Ireland or Britain. It holds courses in music, speech and drama.