Questions have been raised as to whether the State will be in breach of its own building laws if it allows three new school buildings, affected by the collapse of UK company Carillion, to open with the work certified by just one independent certifier.
The State agency that oversees public private partnerships told the Oireachtas Finance Committee that it would seek a legal opinion on the matter and come back to the committee later this week.
Officials from the National Development Finance Agency told the committee that it was an "absolute State requirement" to have work on three new school buildings, for Coláiste Ráithín and Ravenswell Primary School in Bray, Co Wicklow, and Loreto Secondary School in Wexford, completed by the end of August.
Work on the almost complete schools stopped last Junuary after Carillion, which was part of a public private partnership consortium building the schools, collapsed.
A new sub-contractor has since been chosen to complete the work on these schools, and to survey three other related sites where work has also been halted.
Gerard Cahillane, of the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA), said the quality of the building work would be certified by an independent tester who would have to satisfy the NDFA and the Department of Education that the works were in compliance with the Building Controls Act before the schools could open.
Sinn Féin Deputy Pearse Doherty said he believed there was a serious risk that the State could be in breach of legislation because the Building Controls Act stipulates that all subcontractors on a site have to individually certify that their own work is up to standard.
RTÉ News understands that subcontractors who worked on the three schools are unwilling to provide the certification because they have not been paid.
Deputy Doherty urged the NDFA to ensure that these subcontractors were paid so that the buildings could be properly certified.
He said he believed the State was leaving itself open to legal claims, and breaches of European Union directives, if the buildings were not properly signed off on.
Referring to hidden aspects of a building, such as pipework or underground work, he said he believed insurance might not be provided for some facilities unless the subcontractors who installed them were in a position to certify the quality of the work.
Mr Doherty said the State needed quality assurance and subcontractors needed to get paid.
The NDFA told the committee that 160 subcontractors were employed on the six school sites affected by the Carillion collapse.
The subcontractors were employed by Sammon construction which was in turn subcontracted by Carillion.
Sammon went into liquidation several weeks ago, leaving an unknown number of the subcontractors owed significant payments.
The NDFA confirmed that payments due from Carillion to Sammon had been up to date in December 2017, just one month before the UK giant collapsed.
Mr Cahillane said the NDFA would seek a legal opinion on the matter.
He said the NDFA's feedback was that the quality of the work on the schools was "quite good".
"We are not seeing this as a big problem at the moment," he said, "but we will certainly look into it".
He said the independent certifier had been overseeing work as it went on over the course of the project.
Subcontractors are due to address committee on Thursday.
