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

The fact that the Minister is now acknowledging that the Department should have informed schools but did not is an admission of a cover-up. That is what happened. If I understood the Minister correctly, the cover-up has been ongoing since 2008 when it was first discovered that there were problems in some schools. Some of the problems were identified as early as 2008, but was it in 2015 that we first discovered there were problems?

Did Western Building Systems receive public contracts after the issues had been identified? Is it the case that, based on the checklist of reasons for disqualification the Minister has given, it is guilty on at least two of the things included in the list? I am referring not just to gross professional misconduct but also misrepresentation. It clearly misrepresented the fire safety and building standards in schools. Are they not immediate grounds for disqualification from receiving further public contracts?