A school in Co Kildare will reopen on Monday after its board of management received written confirmation from the Department of Education that the building is safe.
Parents were given the news by the chair of the board at St Patrick's National School in Celbridge at a meeting this evening, attended by more than 200 people.
The school said that 40 contractors were on site today with significant works being carried out on the roof.
This will continue in the days and weeks ahead, including during the midterm and the Easter break.
In a letter to St Patrick's the department said that it "is satisfied the school building is safe to use and should therefore reopen on March 9th".
Kildare's chief fire officer visited the school yesterday and said it was safe and has a fire safety certificate.
Parents at the meeting expressed concern, frustration and confusion about the state of the building and the events of recent days.
"A couple of days ago, the school was deemed unsafe and now, within 72 hours, it is safe," one parent said.
The meeting heard that the building was constructed 18 years ago with an intended lifespan of five years.
The board said that it had taken the decision at a meeting on Tuesday because it felt the school was not a safe environment.
The board's chair stressed that members are volunteers. She said there had been inaccurate details in the media in recent days.
She also said it was not correct that the Department of Education was taking on indemnity for the school.
Earlier today, RTÉ News reported that the department had offered to take on indemnity after St Patrick's raised concerns around its insurance liability.
St Patrick's is situated on GAA-owned lands which are leased by the school through the Department of Education.
The school has been in temporary buildings since 2007 and another building to house it is going through the planning process.
It is among 285 schools on a department list of large-scale building projects that are being progressed through planning stages.
School closure not necessary - minister
Earlier, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless said he did not think it was necessary for the school - in his constituency - to close, describing the move as regrettable.
He said there had been intensive engagement by the Department of Education with St Patrick's over several months.
"There is literally contractors on site. Works are agreed and ongoing. Work has been done in January and February already," Mr Lawless said.
Asked whether he believed the school had been wrong to close, the minister said that each individual school was entitled to make its own judgement.
But he said that there is not a lot more that the department could do in relation to the situation.
Speaking of today's engagement he said: "I think when everyone stands back and has a look at the works that are under way perhaps there can be some assurance drawn from that that will give the school the comfort that they need to continue business as normal".
Tánaiste Simon Harris told the Dáil that the Department of Education had "received a number of emergency work applications from the school".
He was responding to Social Democrats TD for Kildare North, Aidan Farrelly, who said that "the Department of Education knew about the problems in the school as far back as last summer".
'Very concerned about safety of our children' - parent
The mother of three pupils at St Patrick's said parents were "aware" for "a couple of months" that "something was going on with the school", mainly because of what their children were telling them.
Christine Reale said there were "stories of ceilings collapsing in the corridor, parts of the school being cornered off.
"I know my two younger ones had to reroute when they were exiting the school through another classroom with an external door rather than the main door.
"My youngest child is in first class and her classroom was closed for the month of December, they were in the PE hall, and there wasn't any communication.
"I just knew that my child was there because she kept saying, oh we're in the PE hall again today," Ms Reale told RTÉ's News at One.
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She said that, at the school one day, a staff member told her that there had been a "bad smell" coming from the classroom and efforts were being made to identity the source.
"Then of course there was a report a couple of weeks ago and it highlighted an architectural report from last March, 2025, where the architect had highlighted, just on visual, serious concerns that he had about the safety of the school."
Ms Reale said the situation has been "brewing" and "evolving" over the last "month or so".
"It's gone to a point where we were getting very concerned about the safety of our children," she said.
