Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy O'Dowd.

We will not oppose the Bill but we will table amendments. The Bill has five functions - to reform the board of FÁS; to require the disclosure of the interests of board members; to protect whistleblowers; to make the director general responsible to the Committee of Public Accounts and other relevant Oireachtas committees; and to give the Minister the power to remove board members for underperformance or, where it is expedient, to ensure the functions of FÁS are performed properly.

With regard to the proposed changes to the board, it makes sense to reduce the number of members from 17 to 11, including the director general. One of the flaws in the structure of the board is that, by and large, it is a representative board with members representing different sectional interests. A culture whereby board members represent the interests of the organisation is not in place and making 11 appointments without restricting them to different sectors is appropriate. I do not say it may be inappropriate for some members to have a trade union or business background but that should be left to the discretion of the Minister and the Oireachtas.

Provisions should still be made for the election of a worker director. I am not clear as to why such a provision has been removed. I will table an amendment to reinstate at least one worker director. Proper Oireachtas scrutiny of the appointments is not provided for, although the programme for Government contains two sets to proposals to allow Oireachtas committees to make nominations to boards and a new appointments system, which will be subject to future legislation to be agreed by the Government parties. However, this legislation represents an opportunity to pre-empt these changes by providing for proper Oireachtas scrutiny of all appointments made by the Minister or to give the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment the opportunity to make nominations. I expect the support of the Green Party and Fianna Fáil for this, given it is mentioned in the programme for Government.

The provision requiring disclosure of interests is valuable and the protection of whistleblowers, provided for in section 7, is important, given much of what we have learned about the scandals in FÁS has come from decent, honest, hardworking employees, like most of those who work for the organisation, who were appalled by the behaviour of their superiors and the inaction of board members and Ministers. They blew the whistle in regard to much of this and it is welcome that there is protection for whistle-blowers in the legislation. We should have a single item of legislation that protects all whistle-blowers but I welcome the measure in this Bill.

I am also happy with sections 4 and 5, which make the director general responsible to the Committee of Public Accounts and to the other Oireachtas committees.

I agree with section 8, which gives the Minister power to remove board members for non-performance or where it is expedient to ensure the functions of FÁS are carried out properly. There should also be provision for the Minister to dismiss executives of FÁS for the same reasons because it is the executives in FÁS who have done the most wrong, not the board members. It is right that the board has resigned but the primary wrongs were done by executives who remain in place. The Minister, Deputy Mary Coughlan, should have the power to dismiss those people for the same reasons she would be enabled to dismiss board members.

In terms of political responsibility, and it is important to talk about responsibility when it comes to FÁS, at least five members of the Cabinet must take some responsibility for the scandal, mess and waste that has gone on in FÁS. They are the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Health and Children. The Tánaiste has largely treated FÁS as a bad media story that she wanted to go away. There has yet to be root and branch reform of FÁS, and that is what is missing from this Bill.

As far back as May 2008 when we first raised concerns about this issue we were told that FÁS had changed its procedures and strengthened its controls. We were told the board had the confidence of the Tánaiste and the Minister, but about two weeks ago that changed for reasons that remain unclear.

Issues have arisen also regarding the retirement package for Mr. Molloy and the Tánaiste's role in approving it. An issue also arises to do with Mr. Molloy being allowed to keep his car and whether the Tánaiste gave the board of FÁS any advice or direction on that. We still do not have an answer.

Another issue arises concerning the role of the Taoiseach in this, who said in July 2008, with regard to Rody Molloy, that he depends on him at all times and would defend him at all times. In fairness to him, he still does that. At least he is consistent, but the Taoiseach's relationship with senior people in FÁS is a matter of concern, as is the fact that he defended him a year ago, and continues to defend him.

We must also ask about the role of the Minister for Finance. In response to a parliamentary question put down by me specifically asking about the very generous €1.1 million retirement package given to Mr. Molloy, the Minister for Finance stated: "I was advised orally by my officials about the final package and having confirmed that it was within the guidelines I did not object to [them]". We have since learned from documents made available under the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act that the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, misled the Dáil in that regard. According to Mr. John O'Connell, the assistant secretary in the Department of Finance, he informed the Minister that the package given to Mr. Molloy was not fully in accordance with the guidelines and was, therefore, an exceptional case. It is important that the Minister for Finance comes into the Dáil and explains the reason he misled me and Dáil Éireann with regard to his reply on that matter.

We should not forget the role of the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, who were both Ministers for a long time at that Department. They were given some of the information that had been circulating for a long time, did not act on it and went along with what was going on in FÁS. They went on the trips, were entertained and essentially were very well looked after by FÁS. They did not try to change the structures in FÁS in any way or bring about any of the reforms that, in fairness to the Tánaiste, she is now trying to introduce. It appears there is an overly comfortable cosy relationship between senior Fianna Fáil politicians and senior executives at FÁS, and I am not yet convinced we have the full story about that or that it has changed.

It is unfortunate that this Bill is a missed opportunity to start from scratch and examine the Labour Services Act from first principles by asking ourselves what type of national employment and training agency we want. I was interested to see that when some of the research papers relating to FÁS were distributed, and I thank the Oireachtas Library for this information, among them was one from 2005 by a professor of political studies in California who studied FÁS. He made four excellent points, the third of which was that FÁS enjoyed relative immunity from criticism, including research-based criticism. That was the case, and it was the case for too long. He accurately described it as the "Swiss army knife of the Irish State: a highly flexible, multi-functional instrument used to address a myriad of policy problems from high-tech skill shortages to functional illiteracy". Therein was the problem. This organisation was essentially being given the job of doing everything, and that was never going to be sustainable.

Somebody else described FÁS previously as an octopus - a body with a small brain, invertebrate, omnivorous and using an ink-based defence when attacked. The writer in this case described that ink-based defence as glossy brochures, publications and leaflets but we now know that the ink-based defence went much further. It went into very generous advertising contracts for all sorts of commercial and other interests. I am referring to an independent research paper published as far back as 2005, yet it was not acted on.

We can even go back to 1992 when the Culliton report proposed radical reform of FÁS. Essentially, it argued that the multi-objective nature of FÁS was hindering its efforts to focus on training in industry and recommended that FÁS should be divided into two sections - a social economy section that would train people in work and a section that would train people for work.

Referring to the document published in 2005, the two core criticisms of FÁS are the same. First, FÁS is unable to carry out such a multiplicity of functions and, second, its parent department is unable to control FÁS. I do not believe this Bill will change that. We still have an agency that is trying to do everything ranging from social employment and training the unemployed with no skills to fourth level education. We will still have a very large agency with a very big budget that is not properly under the control of the parent department.

I was interested to find out how far FÁS dates back historically. Deputy Bertie Ahern gets the credit for establishing FÁS, but it was the FitzGerald-Spring coalition Government that was responsible. It was an initiative of Deputy Ruairí Quinn who then envisaged a slightly different organisation, NETA, a national economic and training agency. That model would have been a better one and had that Government stayed in office, the agency would not have been established in the way it was done by the subsequent Minister with responsibility for labour.

We need to return to the original first principles of the Quinn legislation introduced in 1986. We should also consider reversing the reforms that were brought in by the then Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, when she had responsibility for that agency. She doubled the number of directors in the agency from 15 to 30. The Tánaiste is now reducing the size of the board, which is welcome, but do we need 30 directors in FÁS? Would 15 not be adequate? Could we not return to the structure that was in place prior to when the Minister, Deputy Harney, inflated the size of Government by doubling the number of administrators, which is interesting when one contrasts what she did in FÁS to her rhetoric? It is very different. We also must consider returning to the regional structures and giving them more autonomy within FÁS.

Unfortunately, the Bill does not contain any political vision or strategy as to the type of training agency we want. The agency has a new chief executive officer, it will have a new board and some improvements in procedures will be made, but no fundamental change in the agency is proposed.

Turning to the agency's budget, the employment programmes and community employment schemes cost €430 million a year. They have an important social role and should be continued. They provide a valuable service to individuals and communities but should that be the job of FÁS? Would that not be more appropriately done at local government level? The FÁS corporate budget and regional directorates cost €150 million a year. Some of that allocation is questionable, and that money could be spent better elsewhere. Apprenticeships and training and integration cost €108 million a year.

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