A Co Galway school is so overcrowded there are only two small toilets for 170 pupils and children are being taught in Portakabins in the yard.
Conditions are so tight at St Mary's National School in Mountbellew that the special teacher for the non-Irish national population is now wedged into the cloakroom in a bid to find space.
The resource teacher, meanwhile, has no classroom at all and has to use the staff room while the general-purpose room, which should be used for PE and drama, is being used as a classroom to cater for increasing numbers at the school.
Almost 170 pupils attend the mixed national school which has its highest school population since it was built 50 years ago.
Principal Michael Kelly said yesterday the school has been appealing to the Department of Education for assistance for the past three years.
"We are in need. It is an old-fashioned school and the classrooms are too small. We have no proper office and no storage."
He added: "Our general purpose room was built 20 years ago and it was used for one year before it became a classroom. It has been a classroom ever since. In wet weather, we have no PE hall, which is difficult given the emphasis on health and fitness. The classrooms are over-crowded and we don't have enough toilet facilities," he said.
Mr Kelly operates from a small office converted from a storeroom. He said the school needs a major building project to include at least three classrooms.
"We would like to have proper facilities for the kids, but we are making no progress. We keep the school well, but it is just not big enough," he said.
Fine Gael Galway East TD Paul Connaughton said it was "outrageous" that both teachers and children would be treated with such disrespect in an economy that "literally pumped millions into every type of project over the past five years".
"I happened to be present a few weeks ago when the new infant class presented themselves for the first time and it was obvious that this school is utterly incapable of providing anything like a remotely adequate learning environment" he said.
He added: "All the signs are that the student population will continue to increase and, so far, the department has not even sent down a design team to look at the project.
He said despite the best efforts of the teachers, the board of management and parents, the Mountbellew school project seems locked in some type of time warp and the situation must be rectified immediately.