Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to this important debate. While I welcome aspects of the legislation, it requires significant improvement and I hope the Minister of State will take on board the proposals made by the Opposition and Government backbenchers to constructively improve the Bill and make it more effective for the long-term viability of the FÁS organisation. The revelations about incompetence, overspending, waste and so on relating to the agency over the past 15 months are unfortunate and extremely worrying but it is appropriate that they were brought to the fore in the public interest. We have an opportunity to address the systemic failures in this organisation and other public bodies.

What has emerged regarding FÁS represents a deep and endemic cultural problem within the State across the public sector, in particular, but also across government. An acceptance of gross overspending, profligacy and waste, particularly during the boom years of the Celtic tiger, emerged together with an absolute absence of accountability for these developments. I do not need to list the endless spending programmes undertaken by governments in the past 12 years or so, for which there has been no accountability. No heads have rolled and nobody in Government has stood up and accepted responsibility, taken the flak and come clean to the taxpayer by saying he or she was the responsible Minister or junior Minister or the director or chief executive officer in the case of a public body.

A culture of denial and tacit complicity held sway throughout the State sector and FÁS exemplified this. While much of its budget is diverted to training and upskilling programmes, employment schemes and so on, it is still a huge monolithic organisation, the largest in the State. The many revelations of the past 15 months have been well aired in the media but a number were particularly alarming, for example, €622,000 spent on nothing, €600,000 spent on a television advertisement that was never broadcast and €9,200 paid for a car that was never delivered. That is a small sample of the incredible waste. It is most alarming that, as these revelations emerge in a drip, drip fashion through Freedom of Information Act requests and so on, there is no sense of urgency at Government level, particularly on the part of the Minister.

There was no sense of urgency at Government level, particularly regarding the Office of the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. There was no sense of accountability or a strong view from the Minister that this problem had to be sorted out, that she was going to get to the bottom of it and root out any waste or weak links within the organisation. That exemplifies the cosy culture that existed but the Minister, in essence, did not want to expose or disclose what was going on regarding the FÁS board and the level of incompetency among senior executives working in that organisation. It was much more comfortable for the Government, and particularly for the Minister, to try to sweep it under the carpet and pretend that nothing was happening but the persistence of the Opposition, particularly my colleague, Deputy Leo Varadkar, and a very small number of journalists including Shane Ross writing in the business section of the Sunday Independent, ensured that the truth emerged, despite the Tánaiste's reluctance.

In a statement in this Chamber in May 2008, the Tánaiste said she was satisfied that the FÁS board had clarified its procedures and strengthened its internal controls. That was good enough for her. There was no intention on the part of the Tánaiste to introduce legislation of the nature we see before the House today. There was no interest in bringing forward any legislation to deal with the systemic problems within the FÁS organisation.

Similarly, the Taoiseach, Deputy Brian Cowen, in June 2008, a month later, spoke about Mr. Rody Molloy whom he said was a person of the highest integrity. It is extraordinary that even as the revelations about the waste and the mismanagement in FÁS were emerging both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, holders of two of the highest offices in the land, refused to delve into the problems within the FÁS organisation, refused to take on the senior executives in the FÁS organisation and turned a blind eye to what was going on at board level in terms of the incompetence prevalent in it. That is extremely worrying. Only when the arm of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste was twisted behind their backs did they take any action on this issue, and it was very slow in forthcoming. Throughout this entire saga there has been no sense of urgency at any point from the top level in Cabinet to address those problems. If we look at the history of the FÁS organisation and the way it is operated, the first recommendations for reform of FÁS emerged 17 years ago in 1992. Throughout the period from 1992 to 2009 nothing happened in terms of trying to reform the internal operations of FÁS.

We finally have legislation before the House. There are some meritorious elements to the legislation but it does not even begin to go far enough. The main proposal, which has been much vaunted by the Government, is the one to reduce the size of the FÁS board from 17 to 11. There is no doubt that a board of 17 is too big and unwieldy for any State or semi-State agency and it will be slimmed down in accordance with accepted standards across other State boards. I do not object to the removal of the sectoral interests on the board of FÁS. A type of cosy cartel has developed not just in FÁS, but across all State agencies. It is certainly a cosy arrangement between some of the unions and the representatives from organisations such as IBEC and so on who are all sown into the social partnership process which has played a significant role in bankrupting this country. It is right that this element is removed but I am not sure I am satisfied with what will replace it.

We must see an improvement in the way the board operates. I have serious reservations, and it has been raised by Fianna Fáil backbenchers in the past hour as I sat in the Chamber, about the lack of any parliamentary scrutiny or input into the appointment of individuals to the new board of FÁS. That presents an opportunity that is worrying. We have seen throughout the decades the cronyism that has been stitched in to ministerial appointments to State boards. My instinct and any sense of propriety has to suggest that we should be moving away from that kind of culture, but the procedure outlined in the legislation before the House will copperfasten it because we are entrusting in the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Mary Coughlan, the exclusive power to appoint people of her choosing to this board without any scrutiny in the Oireachtas or accountability throughout the appointment process to the Houses of Parliament. That is a dangerous position in which we will find ourselves.

There is a perception, which the Minister might say is wrong but I believe is correct, that for the past 15 years State boards have been the preserve of the friends of Fianna Fáil. I find it amazing that the Government, given everything that has happened, particularly in the past year and a half in terms of public cynicism and scepticism about what has gone on and what has brought the country to its knees, that there is no meaningful attempt to try to address that or move in a new ethical direction for Irish politics. That is regrettable.

Fine Gael brought a Private Members' Bill before the House three weeks ago which examined transparency in appointments to State boards. We recommended that, in the case of all future appointments, any proposed chairman of a board would come before the relevant Oireachtas committee to answer questions, put forward their credentials to members of the committee from all parties and there would be an opportunity for some robust debate. That would be a healthy and welcome development. In addition, we proposed that all members of State boards should have their credentials laid before the Oireachtas committee. They may not have to appear in person but at least the Oireachtas committee would be in a position to debate those people's credentials. That is the way we must move forward.

Some of the Fianna Fáil backbenchers proposed a system whereby three members of the FÁS board should be proposed by an Oireachtas committee, but I am not sure that would solve the problem because eight members would still be appointed at the behest of the Minister. They may be friends of Fianna Fáil or personal friends of the Minister who would be appointed to the board without any form of scrutiny. That is not a solution to the problem we face and it is not a way in which to ensure transparency in the appointment of members to State boards, particularly in regard to FÁS because FÁS has been damaged in the eyes of the public, and that is unfortunate. To restore public confidence in FÁS we need a more transparent formula, and I hope the Minister of State will communicate that point to the Minister as I am sure she will not read the transcript of this debate.

Public appointments should be made in public and they should be open to public scrutiny. Given what the people of this country are going through, with 430,000 people on the live register and a budget less than two months away which we are all aware will be swingeing, if we are to restore any sort of public confidence the public should have the right to see that the conduct of public policy and boards, as well as that of the Government, is transparent. I hope the Minister of State will take that on board.

There should be a workers' representative, which my colleagues have already alluded to. The staff in FÁS are currently extremely demoralised. Every Member of this House knows people involved in training programmes, community employment schemes or who are involved in FÁS at some level. We know that the vast majority of such people are good and decent people who work hard to do their bit to try to assist people who find themselves in the unfortunate position of being unemployed.

They do wonderful work and we must restore some sense of integrity, self-confidence and self-belief in the ordinary and hard-working decent people who work in FÁS at all levels of the organisation. Not all of them have been engaged in the kind of profligacy we have seen at the very top level in FÁS and most are appalled by and disapprove of it. They are very demoralised by being associated with it. We owe it to them to give them a role in restructuring FÁS and restoring it as a body of good repute in the public mind. I hope the Minister will accept the Fine Gael amendment in that regard and we will have a workers' representative on the board.

I will discuss a number of other aspects of the legislation. There is a proposal for the new director of FÁS to be accountable to the Oireachtas, which is welcome, and I support that element. It does not go far enough as the director will be accountable to the Oireachtas after the appointment of a board but we must see accountability throughout the process and not just afterwards. I hope this will be considered.

There is a protection for whistleblowing, which is welcome, and there is also a requirement for the disclosure of conflicts of interest. We should take this right across the public sector. With the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, we have seen enormous conflicts of interest between people serving on a variety of boards while sitting on the boards for banks, for example. That must be eliminated from the culture in public life in this country. This legislation is a small step in the right direction in that regard and we should see it right across the public sector.

There will be a mandatory disclosure of interests and, importantly, there will be a provision allowing for the dismissal of a director of FÁS. I am not aware of any provision for restriction of a director so perhaps the Minister will clarify that. If somebody fails to disclose a conflict of interest and is subsequently found out, leading the Minister to exercise his or her power to dismiss, will that person be entitled to be appointed to a variety of other State boards? There should be a provision for restriction, even if it is only for a specified period. If the process is to be consistent, we must consider the future as well as the immediate sanction.

There should also be some provision for a breach of fiduciary duty. By this I mean that if an executive in FÁS presides over the sort of waste that we have seen in that organisation or the type or level of abuse of taxpayers' money we have witnessed, there should be a mechanism to facilitate the speedy dismissal of that person rather than a golden handshake. We must move away from a culture where when the Government is embarrassed by an issue, it may dismiss people but give them a golden handshake of €1.1 million, for example. That is unacceptable and we need robust legislation to allow for the dismissal of such people without any perks or golden handshake.

FÁS plays an extremely important role in every community in this country, from Dublin to Donegal, but it must adapt and adjust. Some schemes, such as the community employment schemes, are wonderful. I know that most of the child care facilities in this city have been staffed by community employment workers so it has been very valuable. Many of the training programmes are out of date and we must adjust that. FÁS needs to raise its game enormously and must respond to the changing market and economic needs of this country. I have much confidence in the organisation for the future but it must adapt, and the Minister should put a framework in place for that adaptation.

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