‘Pay €14m owed to school sub-contractors’ after liquidations in school building PPP

A contingency fund should be set up to ensure sub-contractors are paid what they are owed after massive delays and liquidations of two main firms involved in a school building public-private partnership (PPP), some TDs and senators believe.

Oireachtas Finance Committee chairman John McGuinness said €14m, which a group of more than 60 creditors of the collapsed Sammon group estimates they were owed, is a very small fraction of the Government’s €5.5bn five-year capital budget.

The main building companies in the Sammon group went into liquidation last month, five months after the collapse of British construction firm Carillion, one of two partners in a joint venture that entered the PPP project with the Department of Education two years ago.