Fás inquiries cost €1.3 million

Investigations into management at State training agency Fás cost €1.3 million, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told today.

Paul O’Toole, director general of Fás told the committee that the Mazars report, which examined allegations made by former employee Greg Craig, had cost €188,000 exclusive of VAT. And the Lynam report, which examined 22 internal audits and investigated the conduct of 14 people, cost €550,000.

A High court action that followed taken by Mr Craig after he was dismissed by Fás cost a further €579,000. This included €125,000 paid to Mr Craig, €50,000 toward his legal fees and over €400,000 for legal costs incurred by Fás, which included extensive discovery, Mr O’Toole said.

PAC was examining the organisation’s annual report for 2010.

Mr O’Toole told the committee that €50 million had been spent on travel, advertising and hospitality from 2002 to 2007 by the organisation, which worked out at €7.5 million a year, but in 2010, less than half a million had been spent.

Fianna Fáil deputy Seán Fleming asked whether 90 per cent of the €50m had been wasted, given Fás now only needed to spend 10 per cent of it. He said the expenditure had contributed to the wind up of Fás.

Mr O’Toole also confirmed that over a third of people on the live register who were summoned for interviews with Fás as part of the National Employment Action Plan, did not show up.

He said their details were sent back to the Department of Social Protection who in the past could only use the withdrawal of social welfare payments as sanctions but, since the introduction of new legislation, different and graduated sanctions could be used.

The levels of compulsion had not been “manifest during the Celtic Tiger”, he said, but things had changed now.