LEGISLATION TO restructure Fás at the highest level is expected to be ready in four weeks after the announcement that the board of the State training agency is to resign.
Government Chief Whip Pat Carey said last night: “It should be possible to get it through both houses of the Oireachtas reasonably quickly.”
Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan has been sharply criticised by Opposition parties who claim she took a “hands-off” approach and, along with Cabinet colleagues, completely failed to supervise the agency, which has come in for damning criticism over excessive expenditure.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment confirmed yesterday that former Fás director-general Rody Molloy received a top-up to his pension as part of his agreement to leave the agency this year.
The planned resignation shortly of the board should not represent an end to the changes at Fás, said Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar. Senior executives in Fás “who were directly responsible for the type of reckless spending that the Comptroller Auditor General has criticised severely should also be held accountable for their actions.
“For too long Minister Coughlan has adopted a hands-off approach to this issue and acted as if it was someone else’s responsibility to deal with these matters.”
Labour social affairs spokeswoman Róisín Shortall said: “The position of the board members has been untenable since the extent of the waste of taxpayers’ money in Fás first became public.
“It is also very evident that there was a total lack of political supervision of Fás at Cabinet level.”
Ministers had to face up to their responsibilities, she said. “As recently as Thursday last, Mary Coughlan was refusing to act, despite the damning findings of the report of the Comptroller Auditor General.”
However, there was no response from the Tánaiste to a claim by Fás chairman Peter McLoone that the board was twice told by the Government this year to stay on and clear up “the mess” it had found itself in.
He told RTÉ Radio’s This Week programme yesterday that the board got a “clear direction” from the Minister and the Government in February to stay on, after a damning report from the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (Pac) on Fás expenditure was published. That report was highly critical of the agency’s inappropriate spending on first-class flights and luxury travel.
Again in June, after Fás appointed a new director-general, it was told by the Government to continue doing its job, he said. It wasn’t, he added, until last Thursday night or Friday morning that the board became aware the Government’s position had changed.
On the question of Mr Molloy’s pension, the department spokeswoman said the former Fás director-general received an additional 4.5 years of service to his pension to bring him to the maximum 40 years of service limit required for him to receive a full pension entitlement.
This deal was agreed with the Tánaiste and sanctioned by the Department of Finance. The spokeswoman said she could not put a value on this addition to Mr Molloy’s pension. Commenting on the decision to award Mr Molloy the extra years service for his pension, the spokeswoman said: “In order to ensure a speedy and non-litigative departure [of Mr Molloy], this was considered to be in the best interests of the Fás organisation and the taxpayer.”
