Upcoming Events

National | Education

no events match your query!

Blog Feeds

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Fri Jul 04, 2025 02:12 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The UK?s Crisis Point is Fast Approaching Thu Jul 03, 2025 19:30 | Dr David McGrogan
Starmer's failure to achieve even the tiniest gesture towards welfare reform in the fiscally incontinent UK is a symptom of a much deeper political malaise, says Dr David McGrogan. The crisis point is fast approaching.
The post The UK’s Crisis Point is Fast Approaching appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Britain is Running Out of Space for Offshore Wind, Warns GB Energy Boss Thu Jul 03, 2025 17:54 | Will Jones
Britain is running out of space for?offshore wind farms, the boss of GB Energy has warned, jeopardising Ed Miliband's Net Zero renewables drive, with floating turbines cost four times as much.
The post Britain is Running Out of Space for Offshore Wind, Warns GB Energy Boss appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Does Mass Immigration Cause Homelessness? Thu Jul 03, 2025 15:30 | Noah Carl
Since 2022, the number of homeless people in the US has spiked by almost 200,000. A new paper finds that the influx of asylum seekers under Biden accounts for about 60% of this increase.
The post Does Mass Immigration Cause Homelessness? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Engineer Given Half Lucy Connolly?s Sentence for Near-Identical Tweet Thu Jul 03, 2025 13:51 | Will Jones
A two-tier justice row has erupted after an engineer was jailed for half as long?as Lucy Connolly?over a near-identical tweet, while a Labour MP who punched a constituent to the ground was spared jail completely.
The post Engineer Given Half Lucy Connolly’s Sentence for Near-Identical Tweet appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

School Building Scandal: How Richard Bruton Covered Up

category national | education | press release author Monday October 29, 2018 21:29author by pbp - People Before Profit Report this post to the editors

Press Release - People Before Profit - 26th Oct 2018

Thousands of children are in danger of huge disruption to their education because of the school building scandal. About 40 schools are due to be inspected because of concerns about serious structural defects.

Defects have already been found in a number of schools built by Western Building Systems. This company won a large amount of contracts from the Department of Education and was responsible for building many schools.

It has been paid over €80 million by the Department of Education since 2013.

But as early as October 2015, reports emerged of structural defects at some of the schools.

Even before that date, there was evidence of some problems, because one of the WBS schools at Whitehall in Dublin has been left idle since 2008 after a building inspection. Department of Education officials refused to comment on why this was the case, citing legal reasons pertaining to an ongoing court case.

But even if there was some uncertainty about the Whitehall case, there were reasons to query the handing out of building contracts to WBS from 2015.

Yet since 2015, over €60 million was paid out by the Department of Education to WBS. The Minister responsible for most of that time was Richard Bruton.

His department deliberately suppressed information on what was happening and Bruton even went so far as to express confidence in WBS when he was asked.

As concerns about standards at the schools started to grow, principals began to ask for safety certificates. They were denied these requests on seven different occasions.

In September 2017, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett, asked a series of question of Bruton. Here they are:

Can the Minister explain the extraordinary fact that Educate Together repeatedly asked the Department of Education and Skills to release details of the building inspection reports and the Department refused to do so? This looks like an active attempt to suppress the fire safety issues affecting these schools, which is to my mind extraordinary and unconscionable. Can the Minister explain his statement that none of these schools was dangerous or posed a risk? This is an extraordinary statement. I have read the reports, which state that there were multiple breaches of the requirement for 60-minute compartmentalisation. It is not that the school could burn down in 60 minutes; it could burn down in ten or 15 minutes because where there is supposed to be resistance between units of 60 minutes, there was not.


Here is Bruton’s reply:

It is true that although we are carrying out an audit of every building constructed by Western Building Systems, the Department is confident that they are being built to the highest standards


In other words, even before the audit work was completed, Bruton went out of his way to express confidence in WBS.

Finally Richard Boyd Barrett asked Bruton if WBS was eligible for wining future contracts from the Department of Education. Bruton told him that they were.

In recent weeks, Bruton was moved out of the Department of Education and replaced with another Fine Gael TD.

Varadkar must have known that a scandal was brewing and with his usual PR tricks moved Bruton under cover of a cabinet re-organisation.

The reality is that Bruton should be sacked immediately and a short sharp investigation launched in to why WBS got away with poor standards for so long.

Once again, Fine Gaels’ love affair with big business is costing the Irish people dearly.

Related Link: http://www.pbp.ie/school-building-scandal-how-richard-bruton-covered-up/
© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy