RODY MOLLOY got a severance package when he left Fás in November 2008 that was worth €892,269 more than what a comparable public servant taking “early retirement” would have received.

He got €76,422 more than the maximum set out in Department of Finance guidelines for chief executives whose contracts were being “terminated”, according to the Comptroller Auditor General’s report.

An internal memo written as his package was being negotiated by officials of the Departments of Finance and Enterprise, Trade and Employment noted: “The feeling was that since he himself was disposed to resigning, and the consensus was that his contract should be terminated, in the circumstances, he could reasonably have the terms of the 1998 circular applied to him.”

John Buckley found the two departments sanctioned the package under the Labour Services Act, 1987.