Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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First, I wish to offer congratulations to the Minister on his appointment. I am pleased for him personally and I wish him every success.

The Topical Issue matter that I wish to raise affects a school in my constituency and also affects other schools. The Minister will be aware that phase 1 of the development of Ardgillan community college, which was started in 2009, has closed elements of the school. I would like to know how promptly the fourth year students will be re-homed. They have been asked to stay at home, which is not acceptable, but I appreciate the unknown element in this story. How long will the works take and what assurances can the Minister give to parents across the Balbriggan and Ardgillan community that the project will be completed as soon as possible? What assurance can the Minister give that the State will not be left holding the can for this?

It is unacceptable that this situation has arisen and that we find ourselves in a position where we may have to close not just Tyrrelstown Educate Together, as was announced earlier, but other schools throughout the country as the result of shoddy workmanship.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister's troubles at the beginning are in battalions, not in single spies. This is a big one. The structural safety assessments to be carried out on 30 schools built by Western Building Systems are important because the lives of the children who attend those schools are at stake. The seriousness of that should not be lost on this House. If the Minister were in opposition and speaking on education, he would tell Fianna Fáil that it started the problem by abolishing the rigorous independent control inspections carried out by local councils in 1990 and replacing them with a series of self-certifications. The legacy of the Galway tent and all the rest that goes with that tradition has proved to be a disaster. What now faces us is the urgent need to make sure that schools which house children are safe. I would like us to discuss how in the name of God this happened. Is competitive tendering at the root of the problem? What is supposed to be cheap and efficient ends up costing the State far more and could also end up costing lives.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I am horrified by the Minister's description of the problems this morning. What has been happening in our schools has put a shiver down the whole country's spine. I have a number of questions. Why are these issues arising now, more than one year after the fire safety audit was announced by the Department? Western Building Systems has stated in the media that a substantial completion certificate was issued by the Department. Is this the case? Can the Minister confirm that the Department certified this work as being appropriate, as Western Building Systems has said? If it did not do so, has it ever checked works independently itself or has it always relied on certificates of completion whether under the old regulation or the new regulations? When did the appointment of clerks of works start? I understand that only started one year ago and that it has not been done even with the new regulations. It seems clear to met that Western Buildings Systems should be eliminated from public tendering for the moment. The Minister is required to show significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance of a public contract to do this. There is no doubt that it has reached that threshold. Can the Minister confirm that the Statute of Limitations is not yet in force and that there is still a period in which to sue Western Building Systems and other professionals that may well be involved in negligence here?

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I wish the Minister all the best in his new position. It is a bit of a baptism of fire. It is interesting that Fianna Fáil Deputies come in here and criticise the suitability of this contractor to carry out a government contract when Fianna Fáil awarded the contract. I do not think-----

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry but Fianna Fáil does not award contracts and never has.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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-----it is going to be lost on people that it was in government when the contract was awarded. I have some questions for the Minister which come from parents of children attending Ardgillan community college who have raised them with me directly. When will fourth years know where they are going to be accommodated? Will they be accommodated during the works on a permanent basis? Is the Minister going to set up and ensure that there are information sessions and a steady flow of information to parents? How long have concerns existed regarding the community college? Parents are concerned that perhaps officials in the Department knew about this ahead of time and that they were the last to know? Maybe the Minister could put their minds at rest.

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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I know there were specific questions. I will try to get back to them during the supplementary questions but for the purposes of the record of the House, I will lay out what has happened over recent days since I was briefed on this last Thursday. I just want to update the House.

I thank the Deputies for raising this matter. Before I put the specifics on record, I assure the House that the health and safety of students and staff are of paramount importance and that any and all actions taken to date are predicated on ensuring their safety. Ardgillan community college, Balbriggan, is a 1,000 pupil school under the patronage of Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board, DDLETB, with a current enrolment of 910 pupils. Phase 1 of the school building was built in 2009 as a design and build contract completed on behalf of my Department by Western Building Systems. This was followed by phase 2 in 2015, which was delivered by a different contractor. A fire safety assessment of phase 1 was carried out and necessary works were being undertaken to remediate issues discovered during the assessment. During the course of these works additional issues of a structural nature were identified. Opening up works in two classrooms took place last Friday and, following an inspection by a consultant engineer on behalf of DDLETB, significant structural issues were discovered. Having considered the engineer’s advice, and in the interests of the health and safety of the students and staff of the school, DDLETB in consultation with my Department and school management made the decision to close phase 1 of the school building immediately.

A structural assessment was carried out today at Tyrrelstown Educate Together national school and at the adjoining St Luke’s national school. Some of the type of issues identified in Ardgillan community college were found and both schools are being closed as a precautionary measure to allow for further detailed investigations. This development impacts 1,200 pupils and their parents. I am aware that there are also two crèches on the same site. My Department will work closely with the school authorities in respect of interim accommodation solutions for these pupils. The target is to have interim accommodation solutions in place for the pupils as they return to school following the mid-term break.

The Department acknowledges the disruption that school closures have on families and parents and on the students and staff of the affected school. They will be kept fully up to date with developments. We will have a direct line of communication from the Department for the schools. To update the House, every school in the original bundle of 30 was contacted by the Department today. As a result of the news this evening, the Department now intends to conduct structural assessments on all remaining schools constructed by Western Building Systems. We are going to do structural assessments on all of them, even those built post 2014 after the building control regulations came in. This involves some 40 schools in total. These initial structural assessments have been commenced this week as a matter of urgency. We will continue to do that this week and next week at a very fast rate and with great urgency. School authorities will continue to be kept fully informed of developments. We will also outline a timeline and chronology of the order in which schools will be contacted and assessed tomorrow.

I assure the Deputies that at all times the key priority of my Department is the health and safety of students and staff. I also want to provide assurances that every effort will be made, working closely with local authorities and communities, to identify solutions that will provide alternative accommodation for the students until matters have been resolved with their permanent school buildings. On the question of when we seek to have students back in Ardgillan community college, we hope to have them back in the week after the mid-term break, that is Monday week.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his response. Given that he has only been in the role a matter of days, he will be shocked as all of us are, regarding the developments that have directly affected 1,200 pupils and which will undoubtedly affect many more. It is particularly shocking, and an indictment of poor construction techniques and oversight of the construction industry in the past, that children's lives are being put at risk, never mind those of the teaching faculty and management teams of those schools. I await with interest the results in respect of the other schools that are being investigated. I sincerely hope the Minister and the Department will be in a position to reaccommodate everybody as quickly as possible and to ensure the safety of the children across these schools.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank the Minister for his comprehensive answer but it raises other questions. The questions it raises for me do not just involve the structural assessment of the schools and the number of children and parents who are going to be displaced in their lives as a result. Could we have a structural assessment of the system and of the use of public procurement tendering processes that put us in this place? This is not the first competitive tendering process that has been made a hames of in the past few weeks. We could look at broadband services, CervicalCheck, or the bus tendering process. We need to assess the structural reasons, the hows, the whys and the conditions under which Departments sit down and say let us give this crowd such and such a contract or let us give the broadband contract to this crowd.

The criteria are obviously a whole mess. These very expensive outcomes will cost the taxpayer, the State and ultimately the lives of children and their families.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I asked a series of questions and I would be grateful if the Minister would answer them. I can submit them as parliamentary questions. There is the issue of Western Building Systems, WBS, which is still looking for contracts. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has a role in procurement. He has to show there are deficiencies in its work. I want the Minister for Education and Skills to confirm he will say that bar has been reached and that Western Building Systems should not be getting the benefit of State contracts anymore and that it should be out. Too much has been put up with. This started off as very serious fire safety deficiencies and now we find there are probably more serious structural deficiencies. That company needs to be gone and we need to get proper standards. We need the Department of Education and Skills to inspect these projects and not just leave it to outsiders.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Did I hear the Minister correctly? Did he say all pupils who are not at school at the moment will be accommodated after the Hallowe'en break? Perhaps the Minister can provide more detail on that in correspondence.

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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For Ardgillan.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, specifically Ardgillan. The Minister said in his response that during the course of the works in Ardgillan, additional issues of a structural nature were identified. Can the Minister indicate when those issues were identified? Parents are worried there was information that was known but not communicated to them. Perhaps the Minister can provide myself and other Deputies from Fingal with a timeline of who knew what and when in order that parents' minds can be put at rest because they are concerned. They are still sending their kids to the school. They want to know if it is safe.

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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There are many specific questions. I met with my officials before I came into the Chamber. I asked them to make themselves available to members of the Opposition tomorrow. They will meet together at 10.30 a.m. They will make contact with the Opposition spokespersons and, I suggest, the members of the education committee to do a full briefing. This is a very serious issue.

Deputy Thomas Byrne raised a question about WBS. I met the Attorney General today and talked to him about future contracts. Personally I could not stand over a situation emerging where we have two schools - I have heard some of the feedback on Ardgillan - in which there are no wall ties and wooden panels are not bolted to steel girders. It is unacceptable that the lives of students, teachers and staff have been put at risk. I hope that tomorrow we will have a chronological outline of which schools will be inspected next. I am not working on the basis that it is 2009 to 2013 any more. There is an issue with WBS. We have to be vigilant. There is a lot of litigation and I am advised as the Minister to be careful what I say about litigation. I will not be careful about what I say when it comes to lives. As a result of this decanting, many lives will be disrupted. Parents already have very busy lives. The most precious thing to them is obviously their children but time is also a precious thing. We need a whole-community approach. I implore my colleagues across the House that we try to work together on this. There are serious questions about how we got here and how these buildings were allowed to be built in such a short period of time. It took three months to build a two-storey to three-storey building. These are the questions. I will try to keep the House updated as best I can and try to keep the communication open. My officials will be working very hard to ensure that happens.

I thank the Deputies for raising this issue.