They're Best Friends. So Why Are They Separated When the School Bell Rings?

An emergency all-black primary school set up to teach the children of African immigrants who have failed to get places in the overloaded Irish education system has canceled its launch tomorrow because it is massively over-subscribed.

The school was originally due to cater for 30 pupils and was supposed to open tomorrow morning in Balbriggan, a coastal town north of Dublin. But the education authorities have had to keep the school gates locked for another week because the families of 120 immigrant children have applied for places and more classrooms need to be created.

The issue highlights how the Republic has yet to cope with the large number of foreign migrant workers and asylum seekers. One in 10 people in the Republic is a non-Irish national. Councilor Anne Devitt from the main Irish opposition party, Fine Gael, said: 'It's a place problem, not a race problem, but it's unfortunate that the children left behind are those last in.'

The local council united last week in condemning the Republic's Department of Education, which it said had under-estimated the demand for junior infant places in the town. The emergency primary school will be in a building, Sunshine House, that is usually used as a 'summer school' for underprivileged children from Dublin to give them a holiday by the sea.

One family caught up in the primary school crisis is the Igbosonus from Nigeria. Like thousands of others, the family fled to the Republic and claimed political asylum at the start of the century. Hansline and Lauretta Igbosonu were housed initially at Mosney, a former Butlin's holiday camp overlooking the Irish Sea just a couple of miles north of Balbriggan. This, they explained, was why so many Nigerian and other African immigrants settled in Balbriggan.

Their youngest son, Kieran, was born in Ireland in 2003 and, under the Republic's law, he is a full Irish citizen. He should have been at primary school a fortnight ago. Instead every morning for the last two weeks, just before 9am, Kieran has stood at his living-room window and watched his best friend and other children in his street make the two-minute journey to the prefabs of the non-denominational Bracken Educate Together School.

Local schools have been forced to turn away scores of children from non-Irish ethnic backgrounds, the majority of them African, because many of them do not hold Catholic baptismal certificates, although the Igbosonus are Catholics.

Kieran's best friend is Michael Sheridan, like him a four-year-old boy but with one crucial difference - as the child of Irish parents he has a right under Irish law to a place in a local school. The two boys live in Martello Road, a brand- new housing development with a scenic view of the Irish Sea.

Kieran's father, Hansline, said: 'I actually feel very sorry for Kieran every time I see him looking out the window. Every morning he sees Michael walking off to school he keeps saying to me "Dad, when can I go? I want to go to school today. Can I walk with Michael to the school?" It's heart-breaking, because the little guy is so keen to get to school.'

Despite the debacle, Kieran's mother Lauretta does not believe Ireland is institutionally racist. 'It's a sad situation, because in general I find the Irish people to be very kind and tolerant. In fact we wouldn't have known about the emergency [school] if it wasn't for our Irish neighbors who told us about it,' she said.

'The authorities said they need more time to open empty rooms and turn them into classrooms. So we just have to wait. Kids are versatile and Kieran will be starting his new school next Monday.' This weekend work was still continuing at the site.

A spokesman for the Department of Education denied it had miscalculated the number of children needing primary school places in Balbriggan and said it had acted swiftly and efficiently in establishing a new school.