Pressure is growing on the Tánaiste to take action after a report into spending at Fás published today was heavily critical of financial controls at the training agency.
The Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan, today welcomed the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) report and said it had revealed "serious deficiencies" in financial controls.
An examination by the C&AG into advertising and promotional spending at Fás has found evidence of poor budgetary control and a failure to adhere to public sector procurement rules.
Ms Coughlan said Fás had taken since to "to improve financial control and governance across the organisation" since she raised her concerns about these matters last year.
She also noted the new director general of Fás, Paul O’Toole, will be appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on September 24th to discuss issues raised in the report.
The Minister said work was under way to amend the Labour Services Act 1987, with a view to implementing many of the recommendations made by the Public Accounts Committee, and that the legislation would include a restructuring of the Fás board to reflect best corporate governance practice.
The Dáil Public Accounts Committee said it would resume its investigation into Fás following "some alarming findings" in the C&AG report.
In a statement, committee chairman Bernard Allen said the report again highlighted "many disturbing aspects" about the way Fás operated over recent years, in particular showing that "lack of controls and poor corporate governance" has led to a waste of taxpayers' money.
"These revelations have highlighted lax practices and disregard for public sector policy in areas such as procurement and foreign travel," Mr Allen said.
He said the PAC would be examining this issue "in detail" in the coming weeks when we will be seeking answers from Fás on how advertising and promotion were dealt with. "More importantly, we will also want to know what is changing in Fás to ensure that taxpayers' money will not be squandered in future."
Mr Allen said Ms Coughlan's department, as the paymaster of Fás "must play a bigger role," and that the PAC would be seeking assurances from the Department on steps it is taking "to ensure that its oversight role is enhanced".
He said although many of the PAC recommendations had been accepted, it had not received an indication that its key finding - the board of Fás be restructured to make it smaller - will be acted upon. "This recommendation goes to the heart of what the committee saw as being necessary to provide new leadership to Fás," Mr Allen said.
Fine Gael’s enterprise spokesman, Leo Varadkar, said “heads must roll” on the Fás board over the litany of bad practice and waste of taxpayers’ money in the agency’s Corporate Affairs department
“Taxpayers and the thousands of hard-working Fás employees deserve no less. Yet no single member of the Fás board, or anyone at senior management level, has been held accountable.
Mr Varadkar attacked the Tánaiste’s response, saying she is merely calling for a restructuring of the board rather than taking decisive action. “If heads do not roll at senior level in FÁS, the Tánaiste will be in dereliction of her duties.”
Labour’s Róisín Shortall said the findings in the report demanded swift and strong action from the Tánaiste.
“At a time when child benefit is under threat, when hospitals have been forced to curtail their services and when school classes are getting bigger, profligacy on this level is simply unacceptable,” she said.
Siptu staff at the agency also expressed their “anger and dismay” at the continued waste by a small number of senior managers. Branch Organiser Brendan O’Brien said their actions “reflect poorly” on the agency, which provides “an essential public service in the current economic crisis”.
