Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Can the Minister explain the extraordinary fact that Educate Together repeatedly asked the Department of Education and Skills to release details of the building inspection reports and the Department refused to do so? This looks like an active attempt to suppress the fire safety issues affecting these schools, which is to my mind extraordinary and unconscionable. Can the Minister explain his statement that none of these schools was dangerous or posed a risk? This is an extraordinary statement. I have read the reports, which state that there were multiple breaches of the requirement for 60-minute compartmentalisation. It is not that the school could burn down in 60 minutes; it could burn down in ten or 15 minutes because where there is supposed to be resistance between units of 60 minutes, there was not. The reports give details of that. We know from fires in residential areas, like the recent fire in Newbridge where there was no compartmentalisation, that where a fire should have taken four or five hours to go from one unit to the next, it actually took 25 or 26 minutes. These breaches meant that these children were and, where remediation has not been carried out, are still in danger. There are multiple breaches of basic fire safety. How can the Minister possibly justify the extraordinary statement that none of the schools in question was dangerous or posed a risk? Can he tell us who originally signed off on these buildings back in 2008? Who said that they were compliant? We need to know the answer to this and those people need to be held to account. Did architects sign off on this or, as the report seems to indicate, and this relates to the whole issue around certification for fire safety, is it the case that architects sign off on plans but the buildings do not then correspond to those plans? Michael Slattery's report on this states that this is exactly what was happening, namely, that the plans were one thing but the buildings were another. This means that somebody was playing fast and loose with the law on fire safety and those people have to be held to account. I want to know what sanctions will be taken.

I refer to the number of schools Western Building Systems was responsible for. I suspect that it was for this and if that is the case, it should never get a public contract again. Can the Minister tell us how many schools this company is currently building? How many other schools has it built? We also know that it is involved in the Poppintree project for rapid-build. Are these units being audited for fire safety? It built the extension to Beaumont Hospital. Has that been fire-safety audited? I believe it did work in Temple Street hospital. Has that been fire-safety audited? Can the Minister tell us today that if Western Building Systems was guilty of multiple breaches of basic fire safety regulations? Will it be banned forever and a day from ever getting a public contract? It absolutely should be. Can the Minister also confirm whether the Whitehall College of Further Education was also built by Western Building Systems in 2008? It has been sitting empty to this day because issues were also identified there, initially by the National Standards Authority and because a case subsequently taken by the Office of Public Works over breaches of regulations and building controls. That building is sitting there empty.

Can the Minister tell us who is paying for the remediation? We understand the report on the Lusk Educate Together cost €900,000. Did we pay for that? Have we paid nearly €1 million for remediation of work that is actually the responsibility of Western Building Systems? If we did then that is shocking. Are we paying for all the other remediation works that have to be done? Is the tax-paying public picking up the bill for the shoddy work carried out by Western Building Systems?

To what extent was the Department itself signing off on all of this right through the process? Were there no checks on proper compliance back in 2008? Why was the Department guilty, from what I understand, from October 2015 right up until now of suppressing the information about the extent to which these schools were failing to comply with basic fire safety, putting children at risk, and failing to acknowledge this when repeatedly questioned about it?