The Director of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) has appealed to the Government for capital funding to urgently expand and improve its Dublin campus facilities.
Mr. Colm O' Briain says the college is now refusing places to third level students and will have to cap its student intake, despite growing demands.
Mr O'Briain says detailed costings submitted to the Higher Education Authority earlier this year, show some €76 m is needed to carry out vital work at the Thomas Street Campus.
It includes new workshops, extending the library and building student residences. A priority is building residences for 300 students.
" The last investment from the government was in 1997 when we built the School of Design for industry which allowed us to bring other Departments into Thomas Street to create a consolidated campus," Mr O'Briain said.
"We have not had any capital injection into the college since then and we are bursting at the seams. We desperately need Government support if we are to expand and improve our facilities and increase our intake of students," he said.
There are some 750 applications from post-graduates per year. This year 130 students have been recruited . 150 is the maximum number, although the ideal is 200 a year, according to Mr O'Briain.
"We've been cutting down the numbers each year while the points on the port-folio entrance examination are rising," he added.
The NCAD drew up its Campus Development Plan in 2001 in which it proposed a public private partnership- "the first institution under the Higher Education Authority to go this route", Mr O'Briain said.
"The HEA nor the Government have yet responded" he added.
The proposed expansion is to the west of the existing campus, over the existing college car park and open spaces.
Meanwhile, the work of students from the NCAD's Centre for Continuing Education programme will be on display at the College's Thomas Street from tomorrow until Sunday, July 4 th.
Some 140 pieces of art by the part-time students will be on show including paintings, drawings, ceramics, jewellery, sculpture, photography and textile printing. All of the artists attended classes over 22 weeks from early October until mid March. An estimated 1,000 people take part in the CEAD programme each year.