Deirdre Clune (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

-----junkets, and contributed to the excesses we have seen. A total of €8.2 million was spent on the science programme, of which €3.5 million was spent on advertising. This is a programme that was aimed purely at primary school students; yet somebody in FÁS deemed it worthwhile to spend €3.5 million on advertising, when a direct marketing programme to these primary school pupils would have been far more appropriate. When we raised this with the current director general and the former chairman of FÁS last week, they had no answer. It is obvious that nobody was overseeing this programme and there was no measure of its value. We now have it from the Minister that it did not have any value. It did not have any clear direction and did not contribute to increasing interest in and uptake of science, as it was intended to do. The opportunities programme has been cancelled for 2009. The chairman of the board, Mr. McLoone, resigned last week as he no longer had the confidence of the Minister. I note that following last week's board meeting, other board members intend to stand down in an orderly fashion.

The concerns of the Committee of Public Accounts have been acknowledged by the Minister. It is hoped all the recommendations of its report will be implemented. We await a report from the current director general of FÁS on how those recommendations have been implemented. As a member of the Committee of Public Accounts I found it most frustrating — the situation seemed farcical at the time — that when the committee requested information from FÁS, it was not available to us in many cases under the Data Protection Acts, yet that information was instantly available to the media under the Freedom of Information Act. That is a direct contradiction and a recommendation in this regard has been included in the Committee of Public Accounts report. This practice undermines the integrity of the committees of this House. I believe the recommendation in this regard will be of value to all committees.

The Tánaiste today published the Labour Services (Amendment) Bill 2009. I am disappointed to note that power to appoint members to a board is retained by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment in conjunction with the Ministers for Education and Science and Social and Family Affairs. Again, these decisions will be taken behind closed doors with no opportunity provided for the public, public representatives or Members of this House to question them and so on.

Two weeks ago, Fine Gael put forward a Private Members' Bill, namely, the Public Appointments Transparency Bill 2008. Deputy Leo Varadkar spoke on the Bill which would have been an important step in ensuring transparency in respect of appointments to public bodies such as FÁS, the HSE or the soon to be established NAMA. There has been enormous growth during the past decade in the number of public bodies in this country. Currently we have approximately 1,000 agencies across national and regional level. Many people on those boards are doing a fine job.

We proposed that any board in receipt of public funds of more than €1 million should be subject to the provisions of the Public Appointments Transparency Bill, that the names of appointees to such boards be put before the Houses and that the chairman would be invited to appear before the relevant committees of these Houses and given an opportunity to set out his or her credentials and ambitions for the job. This was perceived as a witch hunt and it was stated that the private lives and concerns of these individuals would be torn apart in a public fashion. However, that is not the case. The Bill would have provided an opportunity for people to appear before a committee of these Houses and to state publicly their case in regard to how they believed the position to which they would be appointed could be fulfilled. Disappointingly, the Bill was not accepted. The publication today of the Labour Services (Amendment) Bill 2009 provides for more of the same in that appointments will be made behind closed doors, in a private fashion with no opportunity for public representatives to question them.

It is important we ensure there is accountability in future and that guidelines are adhered to. I am amazed that Department of Finance guidelines in regard to foreign travel and procurement were not adhered to. The response to this has been a promise to review the current structure, to talk to individuals, to train people in procurement and how they should behave in an appropriate fashion, all of which should be standard. Anyone dealing with public funds should realise the importance of the task involved. When dealing with public funds, there should be a higher level of accountability than that which would pertain in the private sector. The lack of adherence to procedures in FÁS and the riding roughshod over guidelines has been a shocking revelation to us all. There is more to come. Currently, 22 internal investigations are ongoing at FÁS. The Comptroller and Auditor General is compiling a further report in this regard. It is hoped that following this whole sorry saga we will have in place procedures and structures to ensure accountability at all levels and that those employed in State bodies behave in a responsible fashion and remain conscious of the fact that they are dealing with public funds for which they are accountable to the taxpayer through these Houses.

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