Government accused of inaction on Fás

THE Government has done nothing to clean up Fás according to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which claimed its recommendations on improving accountability at the state training agency have been completely ignored.

New laws allowing for the restructuring of the agency’s board will not be published before the Dáil takes holidays, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan confirmed yesterday, meaning they may not be enacted until the end of the year.

The spending watchdog committee carried out an investigation of the agency when it emerged that taxpayers’ money was being used excessively by Fás executives claiming lavish expenses on foreign travel.

A PAC interim report on the controversy was published in February but committee chairman Bernard Allen (Fine Gael) said yesterday the Minister for Enterprise has failed to take action.

“Last February, the PAC issued an interim report on the irregularities, to put it mildly, in Fás. We issued several key recommendations and sent them to the Tánaiste but to my knowledge no action has been taken on any of those recommendations,” Mr Allen told the Dáil.

“The public, the taxpayers, were aghast at some of the disclosures and at the fact that no action has been taken yet,” he added.

Ms Coughlan said her department is awaiting reports on Fás by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the first of which is due in the coming weeks, before introducing any legislation.

However Mr Allen later told the Irish Examiner that the CAG report has “absolutely no bearing” on the restructuring of the Fás board and that this was “just an excuse to put it on the long finger”.

He said: “There should be a strong signal going out that things are happening and Fás should have been dealt with quickly and effectively.

“I’m very determined that the contents of our report won’t be overlooked. We held a lot of meetings on the issue, both in public and in private, and we got a lot of legal advice on the matter,” he said.

Mr Allen said the committee will be carrying out further inquiries on the activities of Fás based on the findings of the CAG report.