Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 31 January 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

Briefing on Current and Future Plans for the School Building Unit: Department of Education

Mr. Hubert Loftus:

I will make two points. First, the architect on the design team is the leader. He or she has a project management role. We do not technically call the architect a project manager but he or she has a project management role. That is part of his or her brief. That is what the architect is required to do and the architect should be doing his or her job. The second point is that under our design team procedures, which are quite comprehensive, design teams are required to provide monthly progress reports to their client with regard to where the project and programme is at. The question and issue should be more about pushing the design team to provide its monthly progress reports, as distinct from falling on the head of the school principal, because the school principal has enough to do as leader of teaching and learning in the school.