Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I have seven minutes left, with the last ten minutes going to Deputy O'Dowd.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary. I noticed that the Tánaiste was late this morning and the Minister of State was late this afternoon. I have often said that the Government is not interested in sorting out the problems in FÁS. Given that its members do not seem to be able to turn up for this debate, I can rest my case.

I wish the new CEO of FÁS the best. There is also a new board, but there is no policy or serious political direction in terms of what type of employment agency we want and need. The corporate and regional directorate structure, much of which is not necessary, costs approximately €150 million. The community employment, CE, scheme is valuable from a social point of view, but this would probably be better done at local government level. The apprenticeships and training integration, which cost €108 million, work well. In many ways, FÁS apprenticeships are exemplars for the rest of the world, but one wonders whether they could be better handled by the Department of Education and Science. Training for people in employment, which costs €122 million, is being cut. The Skillnets model is the way to go in that regard. The budget for training for the unemployed amounts to €248 million.

There is a strong case for reform, even if we were to move to a system in which people were given individual training accounts or vouchers that they could use to choose their own training. For some degree holders, this might involve applying for masters degrees at a third level institution or university. For others, it might involve buying training from a VEC or further education bodies. For others, it might involve going to FÁS.

It is important not to forget that more than 400,000 people are on the live register. The Government is prepared to spend at least an extra €7 billion to give the banks a free gift through NAMA, yet it is unprepared to spend anything like that on private sector pension protection, unemployment, mortgage debt and so on. Even €1 billion set aside for employment could create as many as 150,000 training or supported employment posts, which would remove people from the live register. This is the type of model being used in other countries. Once one's insurance or employment benefit runs out, one is expected to engage in high-quality training or education if one wishes to retain those benefits. Ireland should be moving towards this type of model, but it is a shame that these reforms were not introduced during the good times when doing so would have been easier.

It is important to note the good work done by the Committee of Public Accounts on this issue. Its Chairman, Deputy Allen, and Deputies Shortall and O'Brien made good inputs into the proposals to restructure the board. We should also acknowledge the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports. In my contribution on FÁS last week, I was critical of the media for not blowing the whistle earlier. That the media was well looked after by FÁS in terms of advertising and trips played a role, but we should acknowledge the good work done by journalists such as Senator Ross and Mr. Nick Webb, who blew the whistle on the travels of FÁS executives. Shane Phelan, Steven Collins and Colm Keena of other newspapers pursued the matter subsequently.

I always make the same point in our debates on FÁS, but it never gets reported. It is important to recognise the good work done by so many ordinary FÁS workers on the ground, be they trainers or clerical officers, whose morale has been sapped and destroyed by this controversy. I hope someone someday will include this point in his or her newspaper article on debates in the House.

Fine Gael will not oppose this legislation on Second Stage, but we will propose the amendments that we outlined this morning.

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