Mr. Mark Kane:

I will give a summary as I am conscious that, as he said, Deputy Durkan is not as familiar with the facility as some of his colleagues. We had a condition survey carried out of the premises. That was done by way of an independent building surveying consultancy that is internationally recognised, and they applied an internationally recognised approach to their assessment. They would have identified some of the mechanical and electrical services within the building as being what they describe as either a condition C or a condition D. To put that in English, condition C is for systems that are defined as “poor condition with evidence of major defects” and condition D is defined as an “unacceptable condition”. For example, certain mechanical and electrical systems - some of the electrical distribution, some of the heating, some of the hot water systems and some of the building fabric itself - would have ranked at C or D when we had it independently recognised.

That is part of the decision-making criteria that we would have fed back to our colleagues in mental health.

We would have also carried out - to address one of the points the Deputy is making on the grounds of fire and fire safety and the building fabric - an asbestos survey. Given the age of the building - it is a Roh-Fab building which was built in the very early 1970s - it would have been developed and constructed at a time when asbestos was a reasonably commonly used building material. As a result, we identified elements of asbestos in the building as well which are being managed safely today. If there is any work to be done and it is disrupted, it causes a significant risk in the context of how we manage the dispersal of asbestos.