Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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420. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of schools included in the most recent fire safety audits commissioned by his Department; if it included both primary and secondary schools; if he will provide a list of the schools in breach of existing fire regulations and the breaches involved; if the parents, teachers and school board of management have been informed of the fire regulation breaches; and the new measures he plans to introduce in view of this fire safety review and its outcome. [38399/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department published fire safety reports for each of five school buildings constructed in 2008 where issues have been identified in respect of the compliance with their fire safety certificates.

The five primary school buildings in question are:

Powerstown ETNS, Dublin (Temp - Replaced in August 2016)

Gaelscoil Clocha Liatha, Greystones (Permanent – extended 2016)

Mullingar Educate Together NS (Permanent – being extended)

Belmayne Educate Together NS, Dublin (Temp - to be replaced in 2018)

St Francis of Assisi, National School, Belmayne, Dublin (Temp - to be replaced in 2018)

In summary, the findings of the Fire Safety reports indicated issues of insufficient compliance with some requirements of the fire safety certificates in relation to fire retardation in those buildings. The reports found that while the designs which underpinned the Fire Safety Certificates required that the buildings would provide 60 minutes of retardation to facilitate evacuation, the actual quality of construction indicated a level of retardation less than this.

It is important to note – this is not a finding that the buildings are dangerous; it is a finding that the buildings do not comply with the detailed requirements of the Fire Safety Certificates.

The full recommendations and conclusions are outlined in the Fire Safety Reports for the five school buildings, which are available on the Department’s website at .

My Department has forwarded a copy of the relevant Fire Safety Report to each School/BoM for their information.

My Department will commission fire safety audits of a representative sample of up to 25 schools built over the past 20 years.  This audit is a proactive, extra precaution prompted by recent concerns over the fire safety of public buildings both in this country and the UK. Regarding the list of schools to be examined, this sample has not yet been chosen but will comprise a representative sample of school types and locations and methods of construction over the past 20 years, including WBS and other contractors. The schools to be audited are not restricted to schools built under the Departments “Design & Build” programme but will be representative of all methods of construction. It should be noted that the selection of a school to be audited under this initiative in no way means that the Department has concern about that particular school.