CBS Westland Row, in Dublin's south inner city, applied to the Department of Education for emergency funding last August after electricians warned that the school was in urgent need of rewiring.

However, five months later, the disadvantaged school has yet to receive a response.

Principal Ken Duggan claimed pupils' safety was being jeopardised by the department's inability to respond quickly to their plight, and expressed frustration that emergency funding applied for last summer was still not available more than halfway through the school year.

According to Duggan, the department said a decision would be made on the application by the end of January, but no response had been received by this weekend.

"We were warned over the summer that there was a serious health and safety risk, so much so that we were worried that we wouldn't even be able to open in September, " he said. "We applied for emergency funding immediately but there has been no word back. The children could have been burnt to a crisp by now. What kind of message does that send to the local community?"

CBS Westland Row applied for Euro150,000 in emergency funding to fix the electrical problems at the school. The continued stalling over the funding comes not long after the school was turned down for another government grant. It applied for Euro89,000 under the Summer Works Scheme but was told in early January that the application had been unsuccessful.

This is the second year in succession that the school has been refused funding under the scheme, leading Duggan to question the government's commitment to disadvantaged schools.

"People in the community are very angry about this because they feel that the school is being ignored, " he said. "We are being treated differently to schools in other parts of the city. Disadvantaged schools are supposed to have priority, but instead it feels as though we are being put to the back of the queue."

Education minister Mary Hanafin announced the latest round of Summer Works Scheme funding on 8 January. A total of 965 primary and post-primary schools around the country were awarded money under the scheme, under which the government dished out over Euro119m. A total of 185 schools in Dublin - 109 primary and 76 post-primary - were awarded money.

Dublin South-East councillor Chris Andrews recently wrote to the minister about CBS Westland Row, expressing the disappointment in the local community over the government's failure to provide the necessary funding to the school.

Andrews said the fact that enrolment in the school was at a record high illustrated its importance to the local area. This role was being "undermined and slowly run down" by a lack of political leadership, he said.