Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister cannot comment or would not have the level of detail, and I am not interested in fault for the sake of it, but I am interested in lessons being learned and problems not reoccurring. The simple fact of the matter is that in September 2015, when the project should have been completed, I was told by the Minister's predecessor that issues were at an advanced stage awaiting tender documentation. The Minister has told me this documentation, which was handed in nine months later, in July 2016, was incomplete. How could this be and who are the design team? I assume they are private contractors and that they are on a departmental panel. Is this something they have done in other areas, because if they are doing this job one would think they would have that level of expertise. The people paying the price for this are the students now in the facility, who are not being given access. They have only one chance at an education and they have already lost 30% of their educational life when we delayed previously. Now the Minister is telling me there will be another 30% wait until it is completed. Neither myself nor the parents can take great solace from this because we were told this before and it was not delivered. Will the Minister go back and have a look at this, or ask his departmental officials to look at why the documents were incomplete in the nine-month period, given that when I asked the question the project should have already been completed.

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