The Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, will be asked this week to look into an incident in which children at a Dublin school were sent home early on two days because of noise from the Port Tunnel works.
Independent TD Mr Finian McGrath will also ask the Minister to intervene to end any disruption to education.
Mr McGrath said a number of parents of children at St Joseph Boys secondary school in Fairview on Dublin's north side had complained to him after pupils had been sent home early on Monday and Tuesday, November 24th and 25th, he said.
"Due to the massive disruption, with the children's desks shaking and noise from the tunnel-boring machine, they were sent home," he said.
A spokesman for Dublin City Council said yesterday that the school principal decided to close for half an hour before lunch and half an hour earlier in the evening of the first day and a half an hour early in the evening of the second day.
"There was not massive disruption. The principal of the school and the port tunnel company are on good terms and the school was closed as a gesture of goodwill. If there was any major disruption it would have been addressed directly. We were concerned to get the tunnel past the school as quickly as possible," the spokesman said.
There was no health or safety issue and the noise was as if there was an engine some distance away, he said. The tunnel had now gone past the school and the principal and the company had an excellent relationship.
Mr McGrath also said yesterday there were now 90 damaged homes registered.
"I have had loads of complaints about the noise from people in the Fairview, Marino area. There are 90 registered damaged homes where people have had cracks in the walls, in kitchens and in their gardens. There is a great deal of anger at the way they are being treated," he said.
He had made representations to Dublin City Council and the port tunnel company and yesterday he had submitted the written question to the Department for the Minister for Education which would be dealt with this week in the Dáil.
The council spokesman said there was a register of homes which was open and published. The damage ranged from minimal hair-line fractures to cracks.