Fire safety issues in primary schools dealt with at 'snail's pace'

Missing smoke seals, gaps around fire doors and cluttered escape routes were just some of the fire safety breaches found in five schools in Dublin, Wicklow, and Mullingar, writes Amy Ryan

A draft of the fire reports were prepared in March 2016 and the final reports were received in July 2016.

The potential problems in the rapid-build primary schools were first highlighted in 2014 and detailed inspections took place in January 2016, but the reports have only been published twenty months later.

The school buildings in question are:

• Powerstown ETNS, Dublin
• Gaelscoil Clocha Liatha , Greystones
• Mullingar Educate Together NS
• Belmayne Educate Together NS, Dublin
• St Francis of Assissi, National School, Belmayne, Dublin

The buildings were all constructed by Western Building System Ltd under the Rapid Design & Build programme in 2008.

In June 2016, the construction company WBS met with the Department and agreed to carry out the required works in four of the schools and advised that the works had been carried out by August.

The semi-permanent building in Powerstown, Dublin,was not included as replacement was imminent. It has since been replaced with a new school building completed earlier in April 2017.

Two others in Belmayne - Educate Together and St Francis of Assissi - are temporary buildings which are due to be replaced in 2018.

The buildings in Gaelscoil Clocha Liatha in Greystones and Mullingar Educate Together are permanent schools not due to be replaced. Both are owned by the Department.

In January 2017 the Department’s Project Managers advised WBS that reports suggested that the remedial works that were carried out in August 2016 to resolve the issues did not address the issues in their entirety.

WBS were requested to provide photographic evidence for each issue deemed to be attended to and for any items not yet completed, to include a reason for not addressing and a proposed date for attending to same.

Further site visits to the schools were carried out by a consultancy firm in March and April this year.

The draft fire report was finally received in May 2017 following this visit and concluded that very little upgrade works had actually been carried out.

Where works were carried out they were not to a satisfactory standard and there were issues identified within the report of July 2016 which had not been addressed.

Social Democrats Councillor Cian O’Callaghan said the Department has responded to fire safety concerns at a snail’s pace – putting children and teachers at unnecessary risk.

“There is absolutely no excuse for this delay – for three years teachers and students in these schools were put at unnecessary risk. The Department of Education’s casual attitude to the safety of children in our primary schools is inexcusable," said Mr O'Callaghan.

The department said inspections had arisen following a number of building quality issues, including some fire safety compliance issues, in another school, Rush/Lusk Educate Together National School.

This school had been constructed by Western Building Systems in 2008.

The compliance issues that were highlighted in Rusk/Lusk Educate Together school were in relation to fire retardation in those buildings.

Designs for the buildings indicated that the building would provide 60 minutes of fire retardation to facilitate evacuation however, the quality of construction indicated that the level of retardation was less than this.

The Department said that it carried out significant refurbishment works at that school in 2014 and all issues have been resolved.

Full audits will now be carried out on 25 additional schools around the country and it is expected that the first set of fire safety audit reports will be provided to the Department by the end of December 2017.

Safety issues have been identified in four other schools in the same areas - Two Belmayne schools, Mulligar ETNS and Gaelscoil na nCloth Liath in Greystones - and remedial works are currently being carried out or are due to commence by the end of October.

The Department of Education & Skills also stated that it is "conducting a review of all major school building projects currently under construction" in order to ensure that fire safety requirements are met.

Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Education, Thomas Byrne TD said: “It is absolutely crucial that these standards are adequately met and remedial works begin as a matter of urgency,

“The Department must also clarify their full extent of knowledge regarding poor quality building standards in schools built across the country."