Local Authority: Mayo County Council
Issue: Allegedly forged fire certification
The official opening of a new state-of-the-art swimming pool at Lough Lannagh, Castlebar, Co Mayo, in April 2019 was a happy day for Mayo County Council.
The council's then chief executive, Mr Peter Hynes, was in ebullient form, telling the IMayo TV Show, "I feel, as everyone else here should, very proud of the fact that we have gotten to the point of official open and launch and that the facility is as good as it is."
Castlebar native Lisa Chambers, then a Fianna Fáil TD, was in attendance.
"We have a fantastic local authority, local representatives," she said. "And this project has been years in the making. It didn’t just happen yesterday."
Despite the gushing praise and backslapping at the opening, there was, in fact, a problem – one that paints the council in a less than glowing light.
One of the sub-contractors who worked on the project was a Longford-based company called Clarke Steep Fabrication. This company was responsible for supplying and fitting some 100 tonnes of steel, which keeps the facility’s roof up.
Because of the roof’s design, that was no easy task.
"It was a very complex job," said John Clarke, the company owner. "It was the most complex job we would have done here."
A major project like the Castlebar swimming pool involves a catalogue of ancillary or supporting certificates from specialist designers, professionals and suppliers.
They each certify that their work was designed and built in accordance with the proper building and safety standards and assure the materials used, including, for example, the origins of the steel used.
The council is the owner of the new building. But it is also the control authority, responsible for ensuring the building regulations have been complied with, and the necessary documentation is in order.
"Before 2014, there was no control over the steel, where it came from or who manufactured it,"’ said Mr Clarke. "It's all about traceability. The new building regulations came in, in 2014, and it was to try and eliminate, I suppose, for want of a better word, cowboy operators that weren't using proper steel."
Before the pool’s opening, a dispute over payments arose, and the company withheld its specialist certification.
But Mr Clarke later discovered that the council held certificates in its files that purported to show his signature. He then raised the alarm by alerting the council and the Gardaí.
It is an offence to provide false information to a building authority or falsely claim to be a specialist professional, such as a building surveyor.
When asked if he had anything to do with the documents, he replied, "No, absolutely not, no. Those documents are forged. That signature is forged. It’s made out in our name. All our company details are on that cert, but we did not sign them, and we did not issue them."
"One of those forms is actually stating that we are structural engineers. You can see it there yourself. And we’re not structural engineers. We would not attempt to state that we were."
These certificates are required by law and confirm to the council that the material and design of the steel are up to standard.
"We thought that was a very serious matter when we found those documents, and we thought that the Council would act on us, but nothing has happened. Absolutely nothing has gone on now nearly three years or more," he said.
Ironically, as the building control authority, the council’s job is to ensure all paperwork is in order and the appropriate people sign certificates.
In response to our queries, the council said that it did not rely on the certificates in question, and that it was satisfied it has the required certification under the Building Control Regulations.
It added that it was aware of the Garda investigation into the matter and would cooperate with this investigation.
