Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I wish to touch on a couple of issues. I do not know if my general question has been asked already. The total annual budget stated in the FÁS annual report for 2011 was just short of €1 billion, but programmes cost €736 million, overheads cost €40 million, pension cost €62 million and staff cost about €105 million. If one divides the sum for programmes by 163 interventions for that year it works out at roughly €4,500 per intervention, and if one includes the overall costs of €1 billion then it is roughly €6,000 per intervention. Is that value for money? The role of FÁS is to provide jobs and get people ready for jobs. Would it be better to give the money to employers to take people on rather than giving it to FÁS to provide more training? That is a hard question but a relevant one, and I ask Mr. O'Toole to address the matter.