School ‘innocent bystander’
LORETO principal Billy O’Shea visited the protesting sub-contractors on the picket line on Monday morning to express sympathy with them on behalf of the board of management of the school. ‘The school unfortunately is the innocent by-stander in all of this. We have no financial commitments to anyone,’ said Mr. O’Shea.
‘Our Board of Management has looked at it and we are very sympathetic towards the unpaid contractors but the main sub-contractor, the Sammon Group were fully paid up to December 31 and what appears to be the case is that they haven’t passed the payments on to the sub-contractors. That is the real difficulty. The Board of Management has great sympathy for the sub-contractors but the real hard questions should be asked of Sammon,’ he said.
‘I was happy to meet with the people on the picket line. I called around to speak to them. It is a big issue for them. I wanted to let them know that the Board of Management of the Loreto understands their situation and sympathises with them,’ said Mr. O’ Shea.
‘But at the same time, it’s more complex in that payments have been paid but have not been passed on,’ he said.
The Department of Education said that while the situation faced by sub contractors is regerettable, it had to emphasise that it is not and was not party to a contract with them.
In a statement, the Department pointed out that the sub contractors’ contractual relationship was with Sammon.
The Department of Education reiterated that Carrillion had confirtmed to the state’s National Development Finance Agecny that it has paid Sammon in full up to last December, about a month before Carrillion’s collapse and the Department said that while the sitauton faced by the sub contractors was very difficult it would be regrettable if there were further delays to the opening of the schools.