The board of management of a national school in south Co Dublin is to meet parents and public representatives next week to decide what action they can take to force Travellers camped on the school grounds to move.
The board is concerned that unless the situation is resolved it will be unable to reopen Our Lady's Girls' National School in Ballinteer on September 1st because of health and safety concerns.
Ms Olivia Mitchell, the local Fine Gael TD, called yesterday for the law to be changed so owners of private property do not have to take out costly court injunctions to have Travellers moved.
The parish priest of Ballinteer, Father John Battelle, said the Travellers had forced their way on to school grounds several weeks ago and turned the site into "a cesspool". He condemned the action as "shameless".
The chairwoman of the board of management, Ms Aileen McCarthy, said its only option was to take out a court injunction that could cost more than £6,000.
"We do not have money to spend like that so it is very unfair . . . The only way of moving the Travellers is to take out a court order and that will cost us money which we haven't budgeted for," she said.
A spokesman for Pavee Point, the Travellers representative organisation, said a lot of these situations arose because of the lack of appropriate Traveller accommodation. It called for the immediate implementation of the recommendations of the report of the taskforce on the Travelling community, drawn up by the Government in 1995 and the five-year plans on Traveller accommodation, drawn up by local authorities.