LABOUR REACTION:LABOUR PARTY leader Eamon Gilmore has called on the board of Fás to resign and said the trade union representatives on the board have a case to answer about the lack of spending controls in the State training agency.
"I think that that board will have to resign. I think that that board should go and I think that a new board should be put in place in Fás," Mr Gilmore told the TV3 programme, The Political Party last night.
Asked about the position of the trade union representatives on the board, he said: "I think that they have a case to answer and I think in circumstances where the director general of Fás has now resigned, where another senior executive has been suspended, where there has been excessive junketeering going on, I think that the position of that board is untenable."
Fás is chaired by the general secretary of Impact, Peter McLoone.
The other union members are former Siptu leader Des Geraghty; Irish Congress of Trade Unions assistant general secretary Sally Anne Kinahan, former Teachers' Union of Ireland president Alice Prendergast and the general secretary of the Technical, Engineering Electrical Union, Owen Wills.
Mr Gilmore, who later opened Labour's special delegate conference in Kilkenny, said that a new board should be put in place to run Fás.
He also criticised the performance of the Ministers, including Minister for Health Mary Harney, who have presided over the running of the company.
"I also think, and I said this in the Dáil, that the minister who supervised Fás over this period of time [will] have a case to answer because the whole regime of pay and expenses which apply in Fás had to have the approval of Ministers.
"And the issue, I think, for Mary Harney is not some of the things that have been talked about during the week, but the issue for Mary Harney - because she was minister responsible for Fás over that period of time - is, did she approve what was going on?
"Or to what extent was she compromised in exercising her ministerial role by the fact that she was participating in some of that?"
Opening his party conference, Mr Gilmore said that there was a cosy circle involving Fás and senior ministers who provided its funding.
Mr Gilmore said that it was time for Mary Harney to step down because of her performance.
In recent days, the Fine Gael spokesman on enterprise and employment, Leo Varadkar, has also called on Ms Harney to resign from the Government because of her use of taxpayers' money to pay for hairdos during the trip to Florida.
According to a Government spokesman, Ms Harney's continued participation in Government following the demise of the Progressive Democrats is a matter for herself and Taoiseach Brian Cowen to decide.