ANALYSIS:A failed website that cost Fás €1.7m was central to the meeting with Rody Molloy
THE DÁIL Public Accounts Committee questioned Fás director general Rody Molloy for three hours yesterday and afterwards committee chairman Bernard Allen commented: "Today's meeting raised as many questions as were answered."
It is a comment that is hard to argue with. The committee is inquiring into matters covered in a special report written by the Fás internal audit unit in May 2006.
The report concerned expenditures and controls in the corporate affairs division of Fás and has led to negative media reports, the committee inquiry, and a request from the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, for an in-depth inquiry by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), John Buckley.
The head of the division concerned, who was found to have breached Fás procurement rules and to have been associated with significant overspends, was disciplined as a result of the report, the committee was told yesterday, but he was still in his position of director of corporate affairs up to June of this year.
It was only after some of the contents of the report entered the public domain that he left the position. He is on sick leave.
Molloy said he did not know the man's current title but he "can't return" to the position of director of public affairs.
He did not explain how the media reports, rather than the 2006 auditors' report, have made this so.
The key questions were asked by the Labour Party's Roisín Shortall. Why weren't the activities of the former director of corporate affairs noticed until an anonymous letter was given to Fás in 2004, sparking the audit inquiry? And after they were uncovered, was there a look back, to see how this had been allowed happen?
The answers were not reassuring. In reply to the first question, on why internal audits hadn't earlier uncovered what was going on, Molloy said: "I can't answer that. They didn't because they didn't."
On the look-back issue, Molloy said: "We've changed management practices" since the issues came to light. The implication is that management practices were to blame, but another part of the morning's session indicated that committee chairman Bernard Allen (Fine Gael) was considering other possibilities.
Some time during 2000 the head of corporate affairs, who wasn't named yesterday, decided to set up a website aimed at attracting foreign workers here. Fás already had a website which many believed could have done the job. Allen told the committee the contract for the website was given to a company set up 10 days before it got the contract.
The Fás IT department was not consulted.
The new website was not a success and the affair cost Fás €1.7 million. The expenditure was not approved by the board.
Soon after he took up his position as director general, Molloy was approached by the head of IT who expressed his concerns. Molloy decided to have the outside website wound down.
Allen wanted to know whether any alarm bells had rung, whether the matter was investigated or any reprimand issued.
Molloy said he didn't look back into the history of the matter. "No one set out deliberately to set up something that wouldn't work," he said.
Allen said the director of corporate affairs was allowed to continue on, and more of the matters that subsequently became the focus of the auditors' special inquiry occurred.
He would, he said, draw his own conclusions.
