The Department of Education has moved to assure parents that a temporary school in Laytown, Co Meath, will be completed in time for the new school year.
Reports yesterday suggested that the department had sought planning permission to build a temporary school for Scoil Oilibhéir Naofa national school in Laytown on sites that it does not yet own.
Junior infants are currently being accommodated at prefabs in the senior school's PE hall.
Shane McEntee, Fine Gael TD for Meath East, accused the Minister for Education of misleading parents by claiming that a deal to purchase the land had been concluded. However, a Department of Education spokeswoman yesterday said that the terms of the purchase for the larger of two sites had been agreed.
While they waited for legalities to be tied up, the department had decided to press ahead in seeking planning permission for the design and project management, she said.
She said the department had received permission to do so from the owner of the larger tract of land and that Meath County Council had indicated that the application would be dealt with promptly.
She accepted there had been difficulties in relation to planning with a smaller site originally earmarked for the temporary school, but said it would now be built on the larger site.
It is hoped that children will be accommodated in "high quality prefabs" on the larger site, before a permanent 24-classroom school is completed on the site by September 2008.
Speaking yesterday Mr McEntee maintained that parents had been "totally misled" and questioned whether the department would be able to build on the larger site given that it had not yet been bought.
Parents had been lobbying for the school for a number of years.
Parents told the Oireachtas committee on education before Christmas that a classroom had not been built in the east Meath area since 1974.
This was despite the massive increase in population in the area to 22,000.
The Concerned Parents of East Meath group was formed when parents found that Scoil Oilibhéir Naofa in Laytown would not be able to cater for the 130 children who had hoped to start school last September.
As an interim measure, 91 children began their school day at 2pm when older children had gone home, while 39 others either went to schools outside the area or were kept at home for another year.
Since then they have found accommodation in the gym hall of Laytown's senior school and were sharing two adult-sized toilets among 60 children.