Dáil group seeks legislation that facilitates resignations

LEGISLATION TO facilitate the resignation of the Fás board’s remaining members must be introduced as soon as possible, according to the Dáil’s Public Account Committee.

The committee’s chairman, Bernard Allen, said that it had already recommended changes to the structure and responsibilities of the board.

“It is imperative that the legislation which will allow for these changes is brought in urgently so that Fás can get on with its responsibility of job creation and employment, something which is now more needed than ever,” Mr Allen said.

Following the official resignation of Fás chairman Peter McLoone yesterday, Mr Allen said that the board’s confirmation it would stand down once new legislation was introduced was a “positive step”.

Speaking on behalf of Fine Gael, the party’s enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar said that the Oireachtas must scrutinise the new Fás board before it is appointed.

“We do not want a situation where the new Fás board is nothing but a slimmed down carbon copy of the original,” Mr Varadkar said.

“Although Peter McLoone has resigned, the senior executives within Fás who tolerated wasteful spending have still not been held to account.

“The only other person who left voluntarily was Rody Molloy, and he received a significant pay-off at taxpayers’ expense.”

Labour’s Róisín Shortall expressed disappointment that the relevant legislation would not be ready until next month. Ms Shortall said it was reasonable that the remaining members of the board were providing for an orderly handover to a new board.

“The issue is that it should’ve happened before now. There should’ve been a new board ready to put in place before now,” she said.

“The situation has been allowed to drift and we still don’t have legislation in place,” she added.

Independent Senator Shane Ross said the board should have resigned last year, but they had “clung on”. He was speaking on RTÉ Radio’s News at One.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin’s enterprise spokesman Arthur Morgan said unemployed workers were suffering as what he described as the “Fás debacle” continued.

Mr Morgan welcomed the resignation of Mr McLoone and the announcement that the remainder of the board would step down.

“A new board needs to start addressing the dire unemployment crisis and putting in place training and upskilling programmes to meet the needs of unemployed workers,” he said.

“The fact that this mess has been dragging on for the last 18 months is hugely damaging – time is being lost during which training and upskilling to assist in the economic recovery could have been put in place.”