Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 26 September 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills
Breaches of Fire Safety Standards: Discussion
4:00 pm
Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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What is going on here is utterly shocking and beggars belief when one looks at it in the round. Essentially, the Minister has confessed that information on the safety of children and staff in schools has been hidden deliberately by the Department for a number of years as a matter of policy. It is only because of the persistence of a number of journalists in making freedom of information requests and submitting queries to the Minister that the information on the safety of children and their teachers has come to light. Some of the journalists who covered the story are in the Visitors Gallery. Is that not a summary of the position? Is it not a disgraceful position for the Department to be in?