The Whitehall College building has been sitting empty for a decade, as a legal battle drags on

Off Swords Road, between Drumcondra and Whitehall, not far from the Home Farm FC football pitch, sits the Whitehall College of Further Education.

The building was a rapid-build project, completed in 2007 but emptied in 2014, after concerns about building flaws. Still today, it sits behind a security fence, its facade cracked and peeling.

Legal action has been ongoing since the college closed in 2014, between the contractor – the Tyrone-based company Western Building Systems – and the Office of Public Works (OPW), the Department of Further and Higher Education, and the City of Dublin Education and Training Board.

Ten years on from the college’s closure, Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe is still trying to get answers about how it has all dragged on.

He raised the issue before the Dáíl’s Public Accounts Committee last year. “It is bizarre that there is no way of finding some accountability for what happened while those legal cases take place,” said McAuliffe at the committee.

A spokesperson for Western Building Systems says: “As this matter is currently before the Courts, it would be inappropriate to provide any comment on the matter due to the risk of potentially prejudicing the ongoing claim, save to say that WBS has addressed all matters raised appropriately in the context of these proceedings.”

“The legal case is still ongoing so our position in relation to this query remains the same,” says a spokesperson for the City of Dublin Education and Training Board. “We cannot comment.”

Neither the Office of Public Works nor the Department of Further and Higher Education have responded to queries about the criticism of their legal strategies and the length of time for which the case has stretched on.

A lengthy legal battle

The building was assembled on-site within a week, and the principal at the time was “absolutely thrilled” with it, according to a post on Construction Ireland that year.

The City of Dublin Education and Training Board outlined its position on what happened subsequently in a letter to the Public Accounts Committee in May 2023.

The college was built by Western Buildings Systems around 2006, under a design and build contract with the OPW, it said.

In 2009, Western Building Systems commissioned a report from the National Standards Authority of Ireland but the company didn’t accept the findings of that report, says the letter.

The City of Dublin Education and Training Board contracted engineers at TJ O’Connor and Associates to do another report, finished in September 2013.

“The report raised issues in relation to the structure of the building and its fire safety,” says the letter.

Those matters are disputed. They have all been addressed by Western Building Systems during the ongoing legal proceedings, a spokesperson for the company said.

McAuliffe says he raised the issue at the Public Accounts Committee because the OPW and the Department of Further and Higher Education need to be accountable for their legal strategy, which has dragged on for 10 years.

“Any land in Dublin is valuable, so that a building could sit on it and, equally, that there is a legal strategy which may not even be completed in a decade is not acceptable,” said McAuliffe at the committee.

It was difficult to comment on an issue still before the courts, he said. “I understand that we are constrained but the OPW and the Department have a role to be accountable to the committee regarding overall spending, what may have been spent and the legal fees accruing, the strategy and costs of that also.”

On the phone last week, McAuliffe said that local people want answers about how this could happen.

There is huge demand for space for educational facilities in the Whitehall area and there are plans to build two new secondary schools right beside the disused college building, he says. “This is a building that is really badly needed.”