Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the amount of information he has presented along the way over the past few weeks. We have not had to go looking for this information so the fact that the Minister has been proactive and has provided us with information along the way has been helpful. As the Minister is aware, my daughter is in Scoil Chaitlín Maude, which has fencing on the outside of the building. I listened to what Deputy Thomas Byrne said about the small snag tests. When they first moved into that school, my daughter ended up locked in a toilet as the handles were falling off bathroom doors within a few weeks of the school opening. This does not seem too serious. Obviously, she had to be rescued by the caretaker, which was not nice for her, but a worst-case scenario would have been if there was something structurally wrong with the building or a fire happened when she was locked in the bathroom. I know this is going to the extreme but there are situations where these things happen and it is quite worrying both for schools and in terms of building standards relating to apartments and it opens up a wider conversation.

Perhaps I do not understand it properly but could the Minister explain the tender process? Are we going with the cheapest providers? What is in place from the Department and what expertise exists within the Department in respect of going through the tender process in terms of quality assurance and oversight to ensure we choose a company that will do an adequate job? So many schools are affected in one way or another. It does not just affect one or two and it is not just a mishap. It has happened so consistently that there is no way that there was not something in the contractor's reputation in terms of cutting corners before it was taken on as a contractor by the Department. It is obvious in so many schools that the contractor did not meet standards and comply with building regulations.

I am curious about the role of the clerk of works, which only came in during 2017. What was the motivation for bringing in a clerk of works? Was there a suspicion at that stage that we would need a clerk of works that did not exist previously in the other schools? Who had oversight of these schools prior to 2017? What expertise existed in the Department to engage throughout the building process and not just when the building providers were on site? What type of engagement happened back and forth throughout the process?

Did the Department just accept self-declaration or was it proactive in making sure the checks on the schools were done? Obviously, they were not done if this many issues with them have arisen. Consequently, it seems like the Department was almost absent throughout the entire building process if nothing was picked up in terms of having expertise on the ground?

The Minister responded to Deputy Thomas Byrne about snags and schools that have already been built. What work was carried out on the schools in the past few weeks that raised suspicion? Could the Minister talk me through how the Department comes to know there is a lack of wall ties or a structural issue? What tests are carried at that point to reveal that? Does it not make sense that as part of an overall snag test, those rigorous tests are carried out before a school even opens?

External stuff involves wall ties, which the Minister mentioned a few times. I do not understand the severity of what has gone wrong in the schools that have had to close. What exactly is wrong? What level of negligence took place in the building of those schools?

We talk about lessons learned. I know it is early in the process but what does the Minister regard as obvious in terms of making sure this never happens again, particularly in a place with a significant number of children? How do we stop this from happening again? What needs to happen to remove the reliance on self-certification? What type of expertise exists in Mr. Loftus's division, which concerns planning and building? Are there architects there? Who in that Department has the expertise to oversee the building of schools?