The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) was called in to inspect conditions in 87 schools last year, with more than half of the inspections in the vocational and technical school sector.
New figures seen by The Irish Timesshow that 21 primary schools, 18 secondary and 48 vocational/technical schools around the country were inspected by the HSA.
Fourteen inspections of vocational/technical schools took place in Kerry, while 11 inspections of primary schools took place in Dublin.
However, following changes introduced almost two years ago, details of the findings of the 87 inspections are no longer available under Freedom of Information legislation.
The figures were released in a recent Dáil reply to the Labour Party spokeswoman on education, Jan O'Sullivan, by Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment Tony Killeen.
Ms O'Sullivan said it was her understanding that the majority of inspections were conducted on foot of health and safety concerns raised by people working in the schools. The inspections were also likely to involve schools located in long-term temporary accommodation, she said.
"There are an awful lot more prefabs in use, a lot of schools are in temporary accommodation which is totally inappropriate," she said. "The figures have to indicate that we're going in the wrong direction in terms of making our school buildings safe."
Teaching unions yesterday also strongly criticised the figures. John Carr, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, said that despite progress in school building, primary schools were still encountering basic health and safety issues.
"Where you have a situation with half a million citizens in school every day, safety should be imperative," he said.
Declan Glynn, assistant general secretary of the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI), which represents schools in the vocational and community sector, said they were the "poor relation" when it came to funding.
"If you go and visit vocational schools, you often get the strong feeling they're actually falling down," he said. "Because of the nature of the student population and parent population they serve, vocational schools also don't have the same capacity to privately fundraise . . . not that they should have to."
However, the Department of Education said that the figures represented only a small proportion of the total number of schools in the State. A spokeswoman said that more than €500 million is being spent this year on school buildings.
"If schools have issues of an emergency nature, there is funding there . . . school building issues are being addressed, and safety issues are part of this."
Mr Killeen said yesterday that he believed the figures were "very positive" in so far as they indicated that those concerned were aware of health and safety issues and were contacting the HSA where necessary.