Fás overspending devoid of scrutiny, reveals report
The report by the Comptroller and Auditor General John Buckley confirmed the extent of the excesses which led to the resignation of the agency’s board and its director general, Rody Molloy.
It found lax control on spending and a failure to follow general Department of Finance principles on purchasing and oversight.
Travel was a significant problem identified by the C&AG. Between 2002 and 2008, 4,400 flights were taken at a combined cost of €3m. Of those, 3,400 were shorthaul where an above average amount were business class. In long haul the use of premium services compared favourably with other state agencies because students of the Science Challenge programme flew economy.
The report said the luxurious travel arrangements were reserved for senior management, their families and guests.
“Fás staff below director level and participants in programmes generally travelled economy class. The predominant use of business class was by senior management, the staff of Corporate Affairs and non-Fás personnel,” it said.
Internally the most frequent fliers were the manager of the Science Challenge programme, who spent €124,000 on 24 trips, the director of corporate affairs, who spent €95,000 on 18 trips, and former director general Mr Molloy, who spent €93,000 on 28 trips.
On top of that, the agency paid €200,000 to ferry partners and non-company personnel to events, the bulk of this went on non-staff members, including journalists.
In 2001 an internal audit cleared the way for corporate services’ staff to book their own travel arrangements. This ran contrary to the proper scrutiny policy laid down by the agency eight years earlier.
The scrutiny of credit cards was also a problem.
Before he retired Mr Molloy had two credit cards for expenses. And in a number of other cases there was no evidence of a business reason for the costs incurred, such as at golf fund-raisers and rock concerts.
The C&AG outlined a multitude of measures the agency has recently adopted to improve its money management.
