A light fitting that crashed onto the foot of a worker at the new Berkeley Institute building was the incident that led to a construction expert being fired from the $120 million project after he?d catalogued hundreds of alleged safety deficiencies at the site.

Despite being branded a liar on national radio by a Government Minister and being called a ?disgruntled ex-employee? by his former employer Somers Construction, Gabriel Martel has no regrets about making public his concerns and 1,200 photographs he claims show dangerous and shoddy workmanship at the yet-to-open school.

He was dismissed, he believes, because his version of the falling light incident did not tally with CCTV footage and has given a full explanation to published in today?s newspaper.

Mr. Martel says he would come back to the Island to head an independent inspection of the building if asked to do so.

In 40 years construction industry experience Mr. Martel, who holds a Gold Seal from the Canada Association, says he has only once come across a project put together in such a woeful manner as he claims has been done at Berkeley.

This week he stood by his concerns. He said: ?There is no doubt in my mind that there is a serious problem. The wonderful thing is that since this story broke there has been a flurry of activity at the school repairing these things and that has been heart-warming. The people at the site have called me up and kept me informed about what is going on.

?The whole thing has been worth it because they are finally doing something about it. For the five months I was there they actually refused to do any of the repairs, now all of a sudden a whole bunch of people are doing repairs to the electrics.?

Speaking from his home in Ontario he said he has received calls from former colleagues at the site telling him of the ?flurry of activity? to put things right.

Mr. Martel?s claims surfaced in last week?s Mid-Ocean News, which ran an extensive report on his allegations about the state of the school and the workmanship, highlighting particularly his concerns about poorly built walls, dangerous electrical wiring and compromised fire proofing.

His former employer Somers Construction issued a statement this week labelling Mr. Martel a disgruntled ex-employee and claiming he was ?upset at being caught in an untruth resulting in his dismissal?, while Works and Engineering Senator David Burch on his Bermuda Speaks Hott 107.5FM radio show last Sunday said that, when the full facts are known, ?the so-called whistle-blowing foreign expert (will be) exposed for the liar that he is.?

Mr. Martel responded: ?I do not think that is worthy of discussion. It is more of a red herring than anything. If you can?t deal with something you try and divert attention away.?

He was employed from last August as a site superintendent, checking that everything at the building was working and highlighting deficiencies, but he soon felt himself being sidelined.

?Within about a month, and having started to bring these issues forward, my duties diminished every day. Instead of being able to go and do certain areas I was prevented or not given the material or resources to do anything. I ended up getting less and less duties to the point where, technically speaking, I could go into that building and within five minutes in the morning I would have done the assignments done for my entire day.?

Then in January, as Sen. Burch announced the building ready to be handed over to the Department of Education, Mr. Martel says he was asked to do a photo essay type audit on the building. ?Somers were concerned about ?due diligence? and where they were at the time. They wanted to show what they had done. Because I had this wonderful time on my hands I was able to dedicate two weeks and I took about 1,200 photos in every room and detailed every deficiency I found. And 95 percent of the deficiencies were electrical,? he said.

Amongst specific concerns he uncovered were open electrical boxes potentially affected by rodents biting through the wires, electrical sockets fitted within six feet of a sink or water source but not having the correct grounding to safeguard against electrocution and electrical junction boxes having no identification labels. He has concerns about fireproofing and claims to have inspected fireproofing material compromised by rainwater and the elements during earlier construction phases.

Mr. Martel admits he is not qualified to make a fire risk assessment, adding: ?But neither is Somers and neither is the Ministry. Somebody has to come in and make this determination. Someone has to look at it. You can?t turn your back on it.?

The strength of the walls and apparent lack of information on what was done by the original builder is another major concern for Mr. Martel. He claims there are missing expansion joints that could be crucial should there be a shift in the foundations. ?You have to take into account the quality of the work that was done by the original contractor when you try to factor in a safety level. If his work was not up to standard, if it was not built to specification, that means that if there was an (earth) tremor it would not hold up as expected,? he said. ?That?s where you have to do a hell of an audit. You have to go in with specialist equipment and do destructive and non-destructive testing to find out what that guy did when he build the structure. We do not know which walls require reinforcing and which walls don?t. We would have to locate the rebar in each one of them and do a density check. That takes time. But I would say it would be time well spend simply because of that history of what was or wasn?t done.? With no apparent record of what has been done before he is left to speculate on the strength of what he has been able to see in certain areas. He explained: ?When there was opportunity to look at something that was being dismantled or demolished or repaired what we found behind it was not good.?

Only one previous project he has dealt with comes close to the alleged deficiencies of Berkeley, that was a housing project in Ottawa that had to be demolished.

Mr. Martel said: ?Berkeley has the same shoddy workmanship and lack of control. In both cases there were an awful lot of decisions that were made at M.R. Onions (at a bar) as opposed to being made in a board room or in a technical sense.?

Fixing the electrical defects he believes exist would cost thousands of dollars, but structural defects and fireproofing worries need to be fully assessed by qualified experts. Sen. Burch is off the Island at the moment, but a spokesperson for his Ministry said both he and Somers Construction were satisfied with the workmanship at the school.