A group of children in a Co Kildare town yesterday went to school in a field, as part of a protest at the Government's failure to build a new school.
Principal Richard Daly of the community college in Athy brought the children in during mid-term break to express his anger.
"Five years ago on this very day, on this very spot, An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern planted a tree and promised that we would immediately have a state-of-the-art secondary school for 400 pupils," said Mr Daly, who is also a Fine Gael councillor in Kildare.
"Five years on we have nothing but an undeveloped 10-acre field."
Mr Daly took the class himself and pointedly taught from a civics book called Taking Action. "We hope the Government will take notice of how we have been neglected by successive ministers."