Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are agreeing to write to the Department on those lines. We should ask it at this stage for the contract price for each of the schools involved. If we are sorting out the money side of this issue, we need to know the global cost of what is involved. We want to be specific on that. I propose that we write to the Department and ask that it reply by 13 November, as we have a meeting on 15 November. The Department will need a week or two to reply. If we get a quick reply, it will not be remotely complete. We will give it at least a fortnight and there will be updates on that. I am sure the Joint Committee on Education and Skills will deal with this issue but we will focus on the points that were mentioned, namely, the teaching, alternative accommodation, and the health and safety of students. The joint committee will inevitably deal with that latter aspect.

A substantial element of the issue, however, involves the contract, the procurement process, the tendering, supervision and cost of the project. Regarding each contract, and the Department can give us the information in a variety of ways, but, in terms of the company that won the contract to build the schools, I want to know what was the next highest price submitted by the alternative contractors. Did the company that was awarded the contract come in as the cheapest all round? In terms of its bid, where was it in the ranking? Was it marginally below the second one on the list or was it well below it? We would be worried if it was very well below the industry norm at the time. If it was, that in itself should have set off alarm bells. We want to examine that tendering process. We will seek that additional information from the Department on each of the tenders. We will ask it to give us as much information as it can supply by 13 November. That is a good two weeks away, and at that stage we can assess the issue at our meeting on 15 November. That is very helpful and I thank the members for raising that issue.

The next item on the agenda is correspondence received since the last meeting. Under category A - briefing documents and opening statements, No. 1668 A is from Ms Karen Murphy from the Irish Council of Social Housing, dated 19 October, providing a briefing note for today's meeting, including an overview of social housing provided by approved housing bodies, progress on publicly funded social housing outputs 2015–2018, the total amount of funding approved and received from public sources, and details of lands transferred by any public bodies between 2015 and 2018. We will note and publish that. We will return to this topic in November.