Another school with build issues

STRUCTURAL problems have been found at another school as part of an urgent review of the work of a company in dozens of schools across the country.

The Department of Education is auditing all 42 schools built or partially built by Coalisland-based Western Building Systems, following the closure of three Dublin schools constructed by the company.

Castlemills Education Centre in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, is the latest building to have structural problems identified. The risk is only to the external brickwork, which requires fencing around the building and some new decking as protection.

This will be done during the Halloween mid-term break. The school is expected to reopen as scheduled.

So far, structural examinations have been carried out by the Department of Education on 21 schools. No intervention was required at six, while structural assessment and analysis is ongoing at a further nine.

Three schools that had been closed following structural assessments – Tyrrelstown Educate Together NS, St Luke’s NS in Tyrrelstown, and Gaelscoil Eiscir Riada, Lucan – will partly reopen the ground floors of their buildings after the mid-term break, Two schools – Scoil Chaitlín Maude, Tallaght, and the Balbriggan school – require fencing and protective decking to be installed.

More inspections were taking place yesterday.

The Irish Daily Mail approached WBS boss Martin McCloskey at his company’s offices in Coalisland and he declined to comment on the controversy. In a later statement, the company said it only became aware through the media that the department was carrying out assessments on all 42 schools that it had either fully or partially constructed.

Last week, WBS said the department had signed off on the build works at the three closed schools.

‘The department’s representatives certified each of the three schools identified. Department inspectors, on a fortnightly and monthly basis, had the right to inspect each project. Projects were only deemed concluded once a completion certificate was issued by the department’s inspectors, as was the case in these schools,’ the company said.