Ruairi Quinn refused fire-trap school repairs

Former education minister Ruairi Quinn told school authorities that a 200-pupil facility built during the boom needed only “minor” repairs, a year before it was declared a severe fire safety hazard.

The former Labour leader told Rush and Lusk Educate Together National School in Dublin it did not need a replacement facility in May 2013 — 12 months before it emerged the building could collapse in a blaze in just 20 minutes.

Correspondence obtained by the Irish Examiner shows that after repeated concerns raised about the facility, one of a number of identical units built for the Department of Education under the rapid schools programme, the department’s building division visited it on December 10, 2012. Despite school calls for a detailed architect’s examination of the building — in use since 2008 — the officials said the only apparent problems related to a leaky roof, a lack of sound-proofed doors and floors, and other matters.