Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Labour Party and Deputy Quinn for sharing time with me. At the outset, I entirely agree with Deputy Quinn's comments on the issue of literacy and numeracy. However, I believe one must go beyond Deputy Quinn's comments on what one might call the establishment, in the form of FÁS, the education system or whatever, to deal with it. A national crusade to combat the problem is required, which would involve calling on people to volunteer. I believe many people would volunteer for a national crusade that was well planned and laid out to ensure proper instructions were in place to achieve results, which would be critical to the entire project.

On publishing the Bill, the Tánaiste heralded it as a root and branch culture change in accountability and transparency at FÁS. However, I am unsure. The Bill will not do this as it would take political leadership and honesty to achieve such a root and branch change. While I welcome the Bill, it can be significantly improved through amendments. In common with other Opposition parties, I intend to table amendments on behalf of Sinn Féin and the Minister should examine them with an open and generous mind. It should be accepted that the objective of such amendments is to improve the regime at FÁS. While the scandals at FÁS are symptoms of the problem, they are not a disease. The disease, in respect of the corruption and cronyism that obtains, permeates all public bodies. How can one expect the public to have confidence in public bodies when it does not have confidence in the Government? They public perceives that the Government is making no serious attempt to combat what is happening or to put in place measures that will ensure accountability and transparency in such bodies, which is the starting point.

As for expenditure, while Members are familiar with the FÁS budget, I refer to the wasteful expenditure by the Government over the past decade. At this stage it sounds like a poem or a ramble about the M50, the port tunnel and so on. However, the backdrop to this situation is that 430,000 people are unemployed on the live register. Many of those affected are from families whose only income now comes from jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance. While such people try to meet all the other financial needs of their families in respect of feeding and clothing their children, public services are being cut back. For example, there have been cutbacks in respect of the book scheme and elsewhere within the education system that have imposed great costs on families, which is grossly unfair. It further impoverishes and puts into difficulties unemployed people that will exacerbate the literacy and numeracy problems that have just been outlined by Deputy Quinn. Similarly, there have been proposals from an bord snip nua and there was an emergency budget last April. Members are discussing the NAMA legislation at present and a budget will be delivered in a few months' time that will impose further difficulties for people, particularly the aforementioned low-income families.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I refer to the FÁS trips in which Ministers partook. How could they not have seen what was happening, given their presence on those trips? Far from not wishing to ascertain what was happening, they joined in. While I do not wish to single out a particular Minister as a number of them were involved, Members are aware of the €400 or €500 hair-do received by the then Minister, Deputy Harney. One should measures that against some of the issues Members have just been discussing. Moreover, it is clear that nothing in FÁS can be addressed without alluding to Mr. Rody Molloy's departure from the organisation . I refer not only to his €1 million-plus bonus but to the provision of the car that was not even mentioned. There also was the issue of legal advice and whether it was taken. Of course it was not, but the reason it was not taken is the key question. I believe all Members know the reason.

Responsibility for what has gone on at FÁS lies with successive Ministers. Why did they not summon senior individuals from FÁS to ask what was going on, what measures and structures were in place to measure people's acts and to measure how the massive expenditure of €1 billion was taking place? It is clear that those concerned were not even behaving in the responsible fashion that would be adopted by someone running a small enterprise in respect of simple structural accountability issues. It did not happen.

We all agree there must be a complete overhaul of FÁS and that we must turn it around so that planning and development is introduced to the agency. I accept that new courses have been designed but not enough have been designed over the past five years. There is still too much of the same. This must change and we need vision and upskilling. Will we upskill people to go back to what they were doing previously or will be aspire to go beyond that to achieve something ambitious? If so, we need to plan better courses, delivered more cleverly in the community. Some of this is happening but not enough. We must review expenditure but this has not happened.

I acknowledge a point made by an earlier speaker regarding the ability and honesty of many people in FÁS. Like many other Members, I worked with FÁS on occasions. In my public and private life I found those who worked there to be excellent people of the utmost probity. They are very hard-working and ambitious for the organisation, not for themselves. As when we talk about those who work for the HSE and the banks, it is important to acknowledge that frontline people sometimes carry the can of criticism from the public because of what has gone on at another level in the organisation. That is most unfortunate.

Community employment schemes are increasingly important. We must also be honest and say that some of the schemes are bordering on the ridiculous. Many accounts have been brought to my attention of workers huddling around the trees on the lawn of parochial houses. That is not very constructive and there is plenty of work to be done in the community. People on these schemes should be in the community and the schemes should be developed. I would like to see significantly more community employment schemes throughout the country.

With regard to the provision in the Bill that reduces the number of board members from 17 to 11, I believe nine would have been better but we can live with 11, given the size of the organisation. Page 11 of the Bill deals with the qualifications of the board members and states that they should have some expertise in finance, trade, commerce, corporate governance or public administration. These are laudable qualities but we should look beyond this and require board members to have knowledge of training and unemployment. Perhaps there should be someone who came through the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, INOU.

I agree with the proposal of Deputy Richard Bruton to refer appointments to public bodies to Oireachtas committees for scrutiny. The proposal for the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to consult with the Minister of the Social and Family Affairs and the Minister for Education and Science is looking in the wrong direction. Proposals for board positions should be taken from the Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business in the future. Proposed appointees should appear before the committee for scrutiny. These moves reduce the potential for cronyism.

I am also concerned about the limited period within which whistleblowers can come forward. Cumulatively it comes to six months initially and then it is extended to 12 months, totalling 18 months. From recent scandals we know that sometimes whistleblowers do not come forward for a period considerably longer than that and I hope the Minister will examine this and consider a longer period.

I hope other Members are receiving as many representations on the back-to-education scheme as I am. I have been inundated for weeks on end about the difficulties people have in accessing back-to-education payments to enable people to improve themselves through the education system. I hope the Minister will examine this because it is at crisis point.

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