Pac to invite Fás director to explain overspend claim

THE PUBLIC Accounts Committee (Pac) will invite Fás director Niall Saul to report on his claims that information about overspending was “deliberately” kept from the board of the agency.

The committee met in private session yesterday to discuss the Fás scandal, which led to the departure of its chief executive Rody Molloy earlier this year.

As well as outlining plans to invite Mr Saul to report to them, the committee’s members said they would urge Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan to change rules that allow “generous top-ups” to be paid to outgoing chief executives of State boards.

In a statement issued last night, committee members said they would write to Mr Saul “in relation to his recent comments that the board was not being informed by the executive of Fás on issues”.

Mr Saul, an employers’ representative on the Fás board, said late last month that some matters arising at Fás should have been reported to the board but were not.

The committee will also invite Fás’s former director of corporate services, Greg Craig, to give evidence to it “if he so wishes”. Mr Craig’s former division at Fás took charge of much of the agency’s advertising budget.

The committee said the upheaval at Fás had “thrown up two issues of broader concern” that required it to write to the Minister for Finance immediately.

The matter of top-ups being awarded to those whose contracts are “terminated” by State boards was of particular importance because further departures could arise in future, the committee said.

Mr Molloy received an enhanced retirement package worth more than €1 million when he resigned from his Fás position in a row over expenses.

The committee said it was “concerned that there are other high-profile departures from State boards and the Fás example is but one”. It continued: “Given the likelihood of future payments, [we] will be calling on the Minister to review these arrangements and issue new guidelines.

The committee also wants a proposed new measure allowing Fás board members to report suspected wrongdoing to the relevant Minister to be extended to all State boards. “The Committee is . . . of the view that ministerial representatives on State boards are either not performing or may be prevented from performing an effective role as the eyes and ears of the Minister,” it noted.