Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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The last day Mr. Loftus was here, this issue came up and I said that, while I did not want to be old-fashioned about it, I was struck by the fact that the response from the Department stated there is a design team and that the design team protects the interests of those individuals – in other words, the architects – employed on the project to oversee the interests of the school, the Department and taxpayer.

In these cases, there was obviously a fall-down. The design team, project team, or whatever we want to call it, did not do it. There was not a person who was calling to the site unannounced. I am saying this again and I want to know what has happened since. It is approximately two years since Mr. Loftus was before the committee. Is there now a technician or a clerk of works in place? It does not need to be anyone super-duper but Mr. Loftus and I know the fault in respect of many of those projects was that the wall ties were not put in. Where there are two rows of blocks, wall ties should go between them. You do not need to be a block-layer or builder to know that. Anybody who has ever stood on a building site would know that. They are an absolute requirement on any construction project. What measures have been taken since to ensure that the project teams employed by the Department and the schools have a technician or a clerk of works? Local authorities have clerks of works. I am not trying to be hard on anybody here but the issue would not arise in any of the local authorities with which I have dealt. Where local authorities are building new houses, a clerk of works calls regularly to ensure everything is being done properly, including the mixes and construction methods. Any shortcomings will be spotted and rectified. I am asking a straightforward question. Since the last time Mr. Loftus was before the committee, what measures have been put in place to ensure we do not end up here again? We are talking about €260 million and if the State is caught for even half of that - and it could be caught for €200 million - it is an enormous sum of money because of very simple mistakes. What has the building section of the Department done since then?