Fine Gael has promised to introduce a package of measures to help schools deal with immigration if it gets into government after the general election.
The plan includes an overhaul of the language support system, improved training for teachers and the provision of English classes for the parents of foreign nationals.
The party leader, Enda Kenny, said all school children were losing out because of a lack of resources to help these new students to integrate.
"The Government have not dealt with reality here at all," he said. "The current situation is that the international children lose out in terms of language and Irish children lose out in terms of curriculum."
Mr Kenny said there was an enormous frustration among pupils and teachers at the lack of capacity within the system to deal with the issue.
He said the allocation of English language teachers must not be capped. "Schools with a higher enrolment of children for whom English is not their first language should be entitled to a higher number of teachers."
He also promised the scrapping of the rule that allows only two years of language support, regardless of the child's need. "Linguistic teachers will tell you that you need three to four years for fluency among international children."
Mr Kenny said teacher-training courses and in-service training must be updated to reflect the challenge of teaching children with little or no English.
"On top of that, we should have a system whereby English language classes are made available to the parents of international children, either on campus or afterwards. They need to be immersed in the language so that literacy levels rise for everybody."
The Fine Gael leader was speaking during a visit to Scoil Mhuire in Lucan, Co Dublin. The 350-pupil primary school caters for children from 14 countries. Some 20 per cent of pupils are from abroad but that share rises to 40 per cent in the junior infants' classes.
The school principal, Henry Thynne, said the solution was far wider than just providing more English language teachers.
"We have children coming to school with no English at all. We have children who haven't been at school before. We have children who have been disturbed by their experiences abroad. We have children who need psychological services," he said.
"Foreign national children are putting a lot of pressure on our system, on our special needs system. And children heretofore who would be receiving special resource teaching cannot now receive it because the places are being taken by the foreign national children and they are entitled to it as well."
Mr Kenny warned that society would suffer if the issue was ignored.
