I want to thank Deputy Farrelly for expressing his concern with regard to this school. I wish to start by saying that there is no reluctance on the part of my Department to consider the question of a grant to make good the defects in the roof at Oldcastle national school and to do this as urgently as all of the circumstances of the case will allow. The case, however, is not a simple one.
The school in question is one of ten classrooms and ancillary accommodation and it was designed by an architect in private practice who had been engaged for this purpose by the manager of the school. As is normal in these managers' cases, the architect was required to consult with the Office of Public Works who acted as technical advisers to my Department in the matter of the building of primary schools but the responsibility for the design of the school and for the supervision of the work during its construction rested solely with the architect in question. The contract for the building was between the manager of the school and the builder. The contract was completed for all practical purposes in March-April 1977 and the appropriate grant payments were made to the manager on the foot of certificates supplied by his architect in the normal way.
On 8 March, 1982 the chairman of the board of management wrote to my Department and reported a great deal of trouble being caused by leaks in the part of the roof over the assembly hall of the school. My Department immediately advised the Commissioners of Public Works of this matter and requested a report and a recommendation. A further letter was received from the chairman in May 1982, a copy of which was furnished to the Commissioners of Public Works. This letter referred, inter alia, to advice the chairman had received from his architect that the leaks were a question of maintenance for which, of course, under the rules governing grants for national schools, the management would normally be responsible. The chairman also indicated his difficulty of accepting this diagnosis of the problem. The chairman's original letter of 8 March 1982 had referred to an inspection carried out by an officer of the Office of Public Works who had given as his opinion that major work would be involved in the repair of the roof.
The chairman had a further inspection of the problem carried out by a firm of architects he engaged particularly for this purpose and who in turn had consulted a specialist roofing contractor. A report deriving from this consultation was sent by the chairman to the Office of Public Works in September 1982. In November of that year the Office of Public Works were informed by the architect who had originally designed the school that he had been instructed by the chairman to forward a report on the roof. The architect enclosed a report prepared by the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards in August 1982 and three tenders received for a set of proposals to implement the recommendations made by the IIRS in their report. There was no recommendation from the architect as to which quotation should be accepted.
The chairman, writing separately, raised the question of the adequacy of the proposals and he made special reference to the report he had received from the firm of architects which he had engaged specially to examine the problems of the roof. My Department in correspondence with the Office of Public Works in connection with these reports had also asked them to investigate the possibility of carrying out immediate temporary repairs to the roof as an interim measure. On two occasions during 1983 my Department again requested the Office of Public Works to furnish a report but in the event a full inspection of the roof by them did not take place until August 1983.
As a result of this inspection, the Office of Public Works wrote to the chairman in April 1984 stating that the works recommended by the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards seemed adequate and put forward further suggestions for consideration, including roof insulation. The chairman was asked to arrange for submission by his architects of fully documented and comparable tenders on this basis. The Office of Public Works also indicated to the chairman that they would have expected a roof of the type in question to last for about ten years without need for remediation and since it had lasted only seven, that they would be prepared to recommend to my Department to grant-aid the remedial works only at an appropriate proportion of the cost. It was also indicated to the chairman that the insulation would rank for grant in the normal way.
As a result of Deputy Farrelly raising this matter and having examined it I am very conscious of the delay which occured in the consideration of this case during the period in question, a delay which I am informed was occasioned by pressure of work generally in the schools' division of the Office of Public Works and by staff shortages.
In February 1985 the chairman's original architects sent three quotations to him for "re-roofing of the school" and recommended acceptance of the lowest quotation which was of the order of £96,000. As this was so very much in excess of the cost of the original proposals of August 1982, the chairman's consultants were asked inter alia to explain why the roof has been leaking and for their comments on the latest costings. In reply they agreed that there could be some reductions in the extent of, and consequently in the cost of, the works which they had proposed. Discussions with my Department's professional advisers followed, and in February of this year the chairman's consultants were advised that in order that the matter might be finalised their explanation as to why the roof was leaking — a matter they had not satisfactorily cleared up — would have to be furnished. This report is still outstanding and it would be a very important factor in determining the level of grant which may be offered to the school authorities.
I do not wish to go into extensive technical detail about this matter. Suffice it to say that the roof was a felt-covered flat roof which in a relatively short period developed defects. These defects included creasing and blistering of the felt, the existence of gaps at the felt edge, the ponding of rainwater on the roof and various other matters, all of which led to water penetration. The reverend chairman has, I believe, done all that he could to get the best possible advice on the causes of these defects and on the various possibilities for remedial works. It is unfortunate that problems of such a nature can develop in a relatively new school building and it is important that the causes of these problems be fully diagnosed so that appropriate remedial action can be taken. We must also establish as far as possible how such problems arose in the first instance and who and what factors were responsible for them so as to ensure that they cannot be repeated in any future design or construction.
Having said this, I will have to concede to the Deputy that I am concerned with the delay in bringing this particular case to a conclusion. I have directed from my Department, that all concerned should come together in an early meeting in my Department's offices so that I can be furnished with a recommendation, on the basis of which a decision on the extent of the financial assistance to be offered to the school on an agreed scheme of remedial works can be made. I shall be urging that whatever remedial works are decided upon should be carried out at the earliest possible date, but preferably during the summer vacation period. I ask Deputy Farrelly to ask the parents and management at their meeting on Monday night to take this directive into account. I ask them to bear with us for another short time until we can arrive at a suitable and appropriate conclusion to this matter so that remedial work can be carried out at the earliest possible opportunity.
