Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"recognises:

--- the critical role of FÁS, as the State's employment and training agency, in assisting the Government meet the current training, upskilling and employment needs of the workforce;

--- the difficulties that the current economic situation poses for the unemployed and their families;

--- the work ethic and commitment of the majority of FÁS employees across the country;

--- the serious deficiencies in financial controls highlighted in the Comptroller and Auditor General's Special Report No. 10 on Non-Commercial State Sponsored Bodies (Special Report No. 10), published in May 2008, and the subsequent confirmation of irregularities in the report of the investigation, requested by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, by the Comptroller and Auditor General into Advertising and Promotion in FÁS (Special Report No. 66);

--- the need for change and reform of the governance structure at FÁS;

--- the need to ensure greater accountability and transparency at FÁS; and

--- the need to restore public confidence in the ability of FÁS to deliver on its training and employment mandate;

commends the Government on:

--- the speedy and appropriate response of the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to the issues raised regarding the lack of financial controls in certain areas in FÁS contained in Special Report No. 10, which came to her attention in May 2008, including:

--- securing immediate clarification and assurances from FÁS that the practices highlighted in the Special Report No. 10 with regard to FÁS had ceased and that adequate systems and controls were in place to prevent any recurrence;

--- requesting the Comptroller and Auditor General in September 2008 to undertake an investigation of the Advertising and Promotion activities of FÁS Corporate Affairs since 2000 and to report on the effectiveness of management and control systems across the FÁS organisation;

--- obtaining confirmation from FÁS that it was now fully compliant with Department of Finance regulations regarding foreign travel;

--- instigating a review by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment into the science challenge programme that resulted in the cessation of the programme and its related foreign travel activity;

--- securing the speedy departure of the former Director General of FÁS without further damage to the FÁS organisation and interruption to the work underway to improve financial controls and governance at the organisation, on terms in line with the arrangements available should his contract have been terminated by the Board of FÁS;

--- seeking a review of the severance arrangements provided to the former Director General of FÁS in the light of a recent statement from a FÁS board member regarding the deliberate withholding of information from the Board of FÁS; and

--- ensuring that FÁS implemented measures to improve financial control and governance across the organisation including:

--- the restructuring and tightening of controls in the Corporate Affairs function, which is at the centre of the Comptroller and Auditor General's investigation;

--- the implementation of a revised structure for its Internal Audit including resources for additional staff and external co-sourced audits;

--- the commencement of a full audit of all procurement locations by FÁS Internal Audit which is due for completion by the end of the year;

--- the cancellation of all credit cards in FÁS with the exception of one which is used to purchase books and periodicals; and

--- the reduction of the FÁS advertising budget to a minimum;

--- confirming her determination to implement all appropriate changes arising from the fourth interim report and recommendations of the Committee of Public Accounts on Special Report No. 10 following its publication in February 2009, and the report (Special Report No. 66) and recommendations of the investigation requested by her and undertaken by the Comptroller and Auditor General into Advertising and Promotion in FÁS following it being submitted to her in June 2009; and

--- publishing legislation to amend the Labour Services Act 1987 so as to provide for a governance structure with greater accountability to the taxpayer, and including:

--- the restructuring of the size and composition of the Board;

--- removing the automatic right to nominate individuals for appointment as Board members from bodies not directly accountable to the taxpayer;

--- making the Director General of FÁS accountable to the Oireachtas;

--- a situation where a director's fiduciary duties do not prevent the P.T.O. director in question from reporting to the Minister;

--- requirements in relation to disclosure and conflicts of interest; and

--- protection for members of staff who report serious wrongdoing in the organisation; and

--- the work of the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment in:

--- refocusing and targeting FÁS policies and budgets on the particular needs of those unemployed and seeking work;

--- putting measures in place to ensure that those who become unemployed are given effective employment services and training supports to assist their return to employment, including:

--- doubling the capacity of the job search supports system provided by FÁS Employment Services and the partnership-based Local Employment Service to 147,000 places per year;

--- the quadrupling to 92,000 places in short training courses, which are occupation-specific and will give individuals specific skills so they can compete for specific job vacancies;

--- the introduction of specific initiatives to activate the unemployed including the creation of 3,800 places for redundant apprentices, increasing the total number of places on the Community Employment Scheme to 22,700 this year; and the introduction of an innovative new Work Placement Programme;

--- the introduction of new FÁS courses to train and re-skill people for the new clean-tech and green economy; and

--- instigating a comprehensive review of the efficiency and effectiveness of labour market programmes, the report on which is currently being finalised."

Since my appointment last year as Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, my goal has been to get the bottom of what happened in FÁS and to fix the problem in a way that ensures, to the best of my ability, that it does not happen again. These are simple and clear objectives. It is understandable that people can sometimes be frustrated by how long the process takes. Members of the House will be aware of the importance of due process. If I were to adopt a course of action that prejudices due process in any way, or if I were to deal with the serious issues that have arisen in FÁS in a purely politically expedient way, the Deputies opposite would be the first to object and to call me to account in this House. The Labour Services (Amendment) Bill 2009 was published today following proper and due consideration of the various issues by me, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Bill's strong and considered proposals send a clear signal to the public and to FÁS that there will be a root and branch cultural change in accountability and transparency at the agency. I acknowledge that members of the Committee of Public Accounts from both sides of the House have rightly played an important role in the legislative process. The importance of following due process was further emphasised today, in a separate development, when the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation decided to bring criminal charges against a FÁS senior manager for deceiving FÁS of taxpayers' money. This is a significant indication of the seriousness with which the State is taking what has emerged at FÁS. A further Garda investigation is continuing at the agency. The work of both the Internal Audit Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General is also continuing.

For the benefit of the House, I wish to set out some specific details of the actions I have taken since I was appointed as the Minister with responsibility for this matter. The full extent of the content of the FÁS internal audit report, INV 137, which raised concerns about certain procurement practices in the FÁS corporate affairs division, came to my attention after the publication of the Comptroller and Auditor General's special report No. 10 in May 2008. That report dealt with a number of issues that arose in recent audits carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General on non-commercial State-sponsored bodies. The issues identified centred largely on failures relating to procurement processes, governance and financial management. In the case of FÁS, the Comptroller and Auditor General concluded that formal internal procedural guidelines were not observed in the corporate affairs division. He found there was a failure to achieve value for money in the way FÁS managed its relationship with its principal advertising agency and the way it conducted business with contractors for major events. He said that the absence of a strategic IT plan within FÁS while a website project was being developed facilitated the misdirection of resources. Following the publication of this report, I took immediate steps to deal with the problems that had been identified. When I met the chairman and the director general of FÁS in June 2008, I sought assurances that the issues raised in the special report were being addressed and emphasised the importance of FÁS securing value for money in its expenditure. On 30 June, I instructed the Secretary General of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to write to the then director general to ask for a comprehensive report from FÁS setting out the measures it had taken to tighten its internal controls to prevent a recurrence of the practices raised in the Comptroller and Auditor General's special report. The then director general responded in writing on 1 July, setting out in detail the remedial actions taken in addressing my and my Department's concerns. Notwithstanding the actions taken by FÁS and in the light of the seriousness with which I viewed the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General's special report No. 10 and the issues that emerged subsequently, in September 2008 I considered that it was necessary to have an independent review of the effectiveness of management and control systems in place across the entire organisation. I therefore requested the Comptroller and Auditor General to consider undertaking a special review of FÁS and he acceded to that request.

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