New agency to replace Fás

Tánaiste and Minister for Education Mary Coughlan has said she intends to replace Fás with a new State training agency early next year.

The beleaguered organisation, which has an annual budget of €1 billion, has been dogged by a series of scandals regarding spending controls and the running of training courses.

Speaking in a two-day Dáil debate on the economy, Ms Coughlan said: “It is my intention that in the New Year, we will see a renewed and freshly-mandated training agency assume the training work of Fás.”

“Our focus on quality in the past has served us well but we do need to do more,” she said.

A draft plan for the reconfiguration of the agency was considered by the group's board earlier this month.

The final plan for the organisation and whether the Fás name would be maintained are still being considered by agency officials and Ms Coughlan’s department.

Labour’s education spokesman Ruairi Quinn said the restructuring plans lacked detail.

“The lack of clarity in the Tanaiste’s announcement will create uncertainty amongst those who depend on Fas for retraining and upskilling,” Mr Quinn said.

“At a time of great doubt over the country’s finances, the government should be taking swift and decisive policy decisions with a clear schedule for implementation. The massive unemployment crisis continues to deepen while this government hesitates.”

A recent investigation into contracted training delivered to unemployed people and funded by the agency found difficulties with the assessment processes in 43 courses.

Last year the agency’s former board resigned en masse in the wake of a damning report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on expenditure controls at the agency.

The report found there was little or no response from the executive board to repeated overspending on advertising during the period 2002-2008.

It revealed the agency’s corporate affairs department spent over €600,000 making a television advertisement which was never screened as Fás did not have the budget for the air time.

In 2008, the agency’s former director general Rody Molloy resigned after a series of controversies about spending on foreign travel for Fás executives and their guests.