€12k bill for prefabs as plans stalled

TAXPAYERS are forking out €12,300 a month for prefabs at a school since last January, when work was to have begun on a refurbishment programme.

But the 400 pupils and 20 teaching staff have not seen any work taking place at St Brigid’s Girl’s National School in the Dublin suburb of Palmerstown since then because of delays in funding from the Department of Education.

Conditions inside the 50-year-old school building are so bad, however, that principal Noeleen Conboy decided to move half of the classes into the prefabs anyway last April after the heating system broke down.