REACTION:THE COMPTROLLER and Auditor General's report into Fás has revealed that some of the organisation's senior officials were living the high life at taxpayers' expense, while Government Ministers Micheál Martin and Mary Harney went along for the ride, Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar said.
“The shady managers who ran sections of Fás transformed it into an agency for fun and sun when they should have been bringing people from welfare into the workplace [and] assisting the long-term unemployed,” said Mr Varadkar.
He said the report’s confirmation that Fianna Fáil Ministers had handed Rody Molloy a €892,000 golden handshake top-up for his pension showed that new legislation was needed to ensure that no minister could ever again give such a generous settlement.
“These revelations will further undermine the good work done by so many of the 2,000 Fás trainers and staff members working on the ground. Government Ministers and executives owe them an explanation and an apology,” he said.
He called on Tánaiste Mary Coughlan to give an assurance that all the recommendations in the report would be implemented.
“The timing of this report is sinister, coinciding with the deliberations of a high-profile legal trial. The Tánaiste has had this report for a number of weeks. I believe her decision to release the report at this time was a deliberate attempt to stifle its findings. Calamity Coughlan has turned into Cover-up Coughlan,” said Mr Varadkar.
Labour’s Róisín Shortall welcomed the report and said it confirmed a shocking picture of waste and mismanagement. “For too long Ministers and the boards of Fás have taken a hands-off approach to the organisation and we have paid a high price for that,” she said.
Sinn Féin spokesman on enterprise Arthur Morgan said the report “should be the nail in the coffin of crony practices that only served to benefit the directors, the Ministers and senior civil servants”. Mr Morgan said the new board at Fás could not afford to be complacent. “The actions of their predecessors have left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouths and this report magnifies the extent to which Fás has been corrupted.”
