Fás chairman warns of further revelations on culture of waste

MORE damning revelations about the culture of waste at Fás are yet to come, its chairman has admitted.

Peter McLoone made the admission as he defended both himself and his colleagues on the Fás board, all of whom will shortly step down as a result of the spending scandal.

The Government is introducing legislation to reduce the size of the 17-member board, and Mr McLoone said the existing board would work with the coalition to ensure an “orderly transition”.

However, a change of board wouldn’t see an end to the scandal, he said. “Even if this board leaves office tomorrow, and a new board takes over, unfortunately, more will come to light.”

Pressure on the board to go first arose last November, when a Sunday newspaper broke details of the luxury travel and perks enjoyed by Fás senior executives and board members. A subsequent report by the Dáil Public Accounts Committee in February found that Fás had breached financial procedures, wrongly funded first-class flights for senior executives and spent tens of millions of euro questionably.

Last week, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the State’s spending watchdog, published a report examining one area of Fás’s budget – the €48m spent on advertising promotion and related activities between 2002 and 2008. The damning findings in the report placed massive pressure on the board, culminating in yesterday’s announcement by Mr McLoone that it would step down.

But the Comptroller is also examining controversies linked to the corporate affairs section of Fás, and a report on that issue is due later this year. The Garda is separately investigating allegations of fraud within the organisation.

“So it will be some time yet before everything that went on, particularly in the corporate affairs division, is brought out into the public domain and dealt with,” Mr McLoone said.

Mr McLoone, who is general secretary of the Impact trade union, stressed that the current board had only been appointed in January 2006 and, therefore, couldn’t be held responsible for the “legacy issues” at Fás dating back to 2000.

Nevertheless, the board wanted to avoid “heaping further problems” on Fás and so would step down. The board’s term had been due to run until next year.

Fine Gael last night said the Fás resignations should not end at board level, insisting that senior executives should also be held to account.

“Senior executives in Fás’s corporate affairs division who were directly responsible for the type of reckless spending that the Comptroller and Auditor General has criticised severely should also be held accountable for their actions,” said Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar. “[They] should also be forced to resign.”