Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

The Acting Chairman is a very hard taskmaster.

The Comptroller and Auditor General in his report on non-commercial semi-State bodies, published in May 2008, reviewed the issues raised in one specific FÁS internal audit report.

Following discussions with the chairman and the director general of FÁS, I decided that there should be an external investigation into the effectiveness of the financial management and control systems that are generally in place in FÁS, rather than have it limited to aspects raised in the internal audit report which gave rise to the earlier special report. Accordingly, I requested the Comptroller and Auditor General to consider doing such a review and he acceded to that request. My intentions in requesting this review are to ensure that appropriate public procurement procedures exist to prevent or detect irregularities or wrongdoing, and also to examine and report on the activities of the FÁS corporate affairs area since 2000. This is in order to achieve reasonable assurance as to whether there were any occasions of potential fraud or irregularity in that area other than those already brought to light by the FÁS internal audit unit.

It is a matter for the Comptroller and Auditor General to determine the scope of his investigation. The Comptroller and Auditor General has indicated that in doing so he will take into account the deliberations of the Committee of Public Accounts hearings on the FÁS element of his special report on semi-State bodies.

As regards wider value-for-money issues relating to FÁS programmes, I point out that my Department has already commenced a review into the active market programmes, including those being delivered by FÁS. The objective of this review is to examine these programmes, including programmes provided by FÁS and Skillnets, in terms of efficiency and effectiveness and to draw conclusions about the adequacy and balance of resources in the context of current and future labour market policy challenges, including the national skills strategy.

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