Fás scandal - Resignations should have come sooner

YESTERDAY’S announcement by Fás chairman Peter McLoone that the organisation’s 17-member board will resign at its next meeting will be loudly applauded from one end of the country to the other.

Ever since last week’s damning report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) exposing an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money in the state-controlled job-training body, the board’s position has been untenable.

What the C&AG revealed was a Fás landscape characterised by lavish entertainment budgets and bloated expenses, a level of wastage presided over by the board that by any standard was indefensible. Meanwhile, serious breaches of procurement procedures in the organisation’s corporate affairs division – in other words fraud – are being investigated by the gardaí.