Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Could the spend be co-ordinated between the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to ensure that the substantial resources that are going to FÁS are not outsourced to third party private contractors? There can be plenty of flexibility in the spending of the money but there should be an assurance that the money that is within the FÁS budget will be spent within the existing public educational infrastructure which currently has spare capacity. The track record of FÁS in recent times would cause one to doubt the efficiency of it placing contracts with third parties in the private sector. There is an accountable infrastructure in place that is short of resources but that has the capacity.

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