Suspended Fás director lined up for Dáil grilling

SUSPENDED Fás executive Greg Craig is expected to be invited to appear before the Dáil public accounts committee (PAC) later this month after claiming he operated outside normal procurement practices with the approval of his superiors.

Mr Craig has criticised the findings of an internal audit report which examined his management of the corporate affairs division within Fás and which sparked the current inquiry by the PAC.

It claimed Mr Craig’s decision to set up a jobs website, Jobs Ireland, which duplicated an existing website already run by Fás, had cost the state employment agency at least €1m.

However, Mr Craig maintains that the Jobs Ireland website was widely praised, while he was also allowed go outside normal procurement practices with the knowledge of his superiors. The former senior executive believes he had a “derogation” from such procedures.

Mr Craig reported directly to assistant director-general, Gerry Pyke, who retired earlier this year and director-general, Rody Molloy, who resigned last week over the controversy surrounding travel expenses by senior Fás executives. The former head of the Fás corporate affairs division complained he only learnt of his suspension from his job through media reports of last week’s hearing of the PAC.

Mr Craig also revealed at the weekend that he had to forego 40 days’ holidays as a result of a disciplinary action taken against him last year. Senior Fás executives have repeatedly refused to reveal the nature of the disciplinary action taken against Mr Craig to the PAC in recent months due to legal reasons.

The Dáil’s public spending watchdog is due to hold its next meeting on Thursday when it will resume its investigation into breaches of financial controls within the state employment agency.

Yesterday, PAC chairman Bernard Allen said the committee was obliged, under its standing orders, to notify Mr Craig that he was the subject of comment at a public hearing of the PAC.

The Fine Gael TD said the committee would also consider calling Mr Craig to appear before the PAC over the next few weeks because of his central role in the ongoing inquiry.

Fás chairman Peter McLoone, the general secretary of IMPACT trade union, as well as Mr Molloy have been asked to attend the hearing. However, it remains unclear if Mr Molloy will attend as he failed to appear, as requested, at a similar meeting last week following his resignation.

Mr Allen said the PAC would be reluctant to examine the background to a separate allegation of fraud by another Fás executive which could involve as much as €500,000 as it is the subject of a Garda investigation. It is understood the unnamed executive set up fake companies and issued bogus invoices to obtain money from his employers.

However, the case represents another embarrassment for the Fás management team which have been criticised for poor internal controls of expenditure.