Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

One thing we can be sure of is that the stamp of Fianna Fáil's failure in Government over the past ten years has been an obscene waste of public money. Yesterday's ESRI report confirms in its own words that the Government has blown the boom. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, responded to this by saying we must take prudent, transparent and immediate action, as distinct from what the Taoiseach said. Many will ask where all this money has gone and what has accounted for this wastage. In many cases, it is made up of relatively small amounts over a broad range. One of the areas that accounts for this wastage is the plethora of agencies and unaccountable bodies established by the Government, for example, FÁS. When unemployment was falling, the FÁS budget increased and is now €1 billion. The recent special report of the Comptroller and Auditor General highlighted serious concerns and questions about how FÁS spends its €9 million on advertising and PR.

Following up on that report, Deputy Varadkar of Fine Gael sought, under the Freedom of Information Act, the details of some of those concerns. It shows that a senior executive in FÁS responsible for its €9 million PR and advertising budget placed most of the campaign advertisements himself, despite the fact that FÁS employs an advertising agency which secures a remit from every advertisement placed. It is like keeping a dog and barking oneself. The documents Deputy Varadkar received in recent days show one instance where €100,000 of taxpayers' money was spent on advertising in one local newspaper, which is completely contrary to the normal policy of FÁS in dealing with national advertising. When asked about this unusual arrangement, there was a straightforward conflict of evidence between the official involved and his director general. Their evidence was directly contradictory. The official said the director general told him to place this advertisement. This is an example of sloppy management of the public's money. In the context of the Minister for Finance saying we must take prudent action, is this the kind of area in which the Taoiseach will see to it that a stop is put to the mismanagement of the spending of taxpayers' money, given the challenges we face?

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