A song recorded in a long running campaign for a school in Cabra reaches number seven in the charts.
Students from Gaelscoil Bharra in Cabra are celebrating the chart success of their song 'Cá Bhfuil Ár Scoil' which was recorded to highlight the school's battle for a new building.
Parents and pupils want to see outdated prefabs replaced with a proper school building. The campaigners say there has been 14 years of broken promises from the Department of Education and the school faces the prospect of another winter in substandard conditions. Freezing temperatures and flooding are common and even rats share the prefabs with the 220 pupils.
Principal Seán Ó Donaile says that the song is a cry not just for his school but for hundreds of other schools which are operating in primitive conditions.
Our education system needs to be improved.
Pupils describe the classrooms as small and cold and one says,
There's loads of rats running around at your legs.
The Department of Education say that they are waiting on the local GAA club to provide the land for the construction of a new school.
The song 'Cá Bhfuil Ár Scoil' is outselling Whitney Houston and Madonna.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 25 October 2009. The reporter is Sandra Hurley.
