Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Public Accounts Committee

2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
2019 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills

4:30 pm

Mr. Hubert Loftus:

Yes, absolutely. There are two parts to that. The structural issues that arose in that case happened exactly two years ago. We put precautionary measures in place across 22 schools. Today, the structural issues in those 22 schools have been addressed, the precautionary measures have been removed, and permanent solutions have been put in place. We then had to do more detailed investigations across all schools and work out a strategy for dealing with them. There are two elements to the review. Within the work-based learning space and the schools, there is a strategic review what we are doing on the overall programme and the remaining works. Second, given that the issues arose across our fire safety assessment programme, there was a question of robustness of issues in respect of schools outside of that programme, and we did sample checking on that. We did not come across any of the types of issues that we had covered in those schools. Separately, we also undertook a new design and build framework procurement process, and lessons will have been learned as part of that, and we will have strengthened the arrangements there in terms of clarity and roles and responsibilities, and crucially, putting an onus on the contractor in respect of the quality regime in place and having dedicated on-site quality staff to manage that.

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