Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I propose to share time with Deputies Andrew Doyle and Jimmy Deenihan. This Bill is before the House at a crucial time. It is crucial to the 500,000 people likely to be out of work at the end of this year. What a daunting task it is for a training organisation like FÁS to find a job for every one of these people. That must be the mission statement of the organisation and these people must be trained to find a job.

A nation like ours depends almost solely on the export of goods and services. We must have a viable, professional and dedicated training agency that will train and equip young people to enable them to compete with the very best across the world. That is very daunting. The national training agency must be able to retrain workers who lose their jobs and continually upskill the workforce in an ever-changing work environment. Such a training agency must have credibility and must subscribe to best practice standards.

I am long enough in this House to remember AnCO before FÁS came into being. I had a great association with it. What I knew nationally and locally of AnCO and FÁS was that both did tremendous work in the 60s and 70s. Despite the controversy at the moment, to which I will refer later, FÁS has done a very good job. The shenanigans of the recent past are not the fault of local staff. The people who were involved in that have besmirched the good name of a good training organisation.

Through the years, some of the best carpenters, electricians, builders and block layers came through the system in vast numbers. They could take their place in this country or in any country throughout the world with the certification they had. They called it the little brown envelope - I do not mean big brown envelopes.

Whatever we say about the well-documented carry-on of the FÁS executives, their luxurious lifestyles and their silliness in abusing their privilege, what is worse is the question of the integrity of the certification of courses. I sincerely hope it is isolated and that the so-called internal audit unit will tell us over the next few weeks that it is not widespread. I have not been told by anyone in my part of the world that it happened there but the luxurious surroundings and expenses of the head people in FÁS are nothing compared to the question of the integrity of the certification of courses.

In fairness to all Governments and the Civil Service, the leaving certificate and junior certificate both have an outstanding reputation. We want the same for FÁS. It is against that background that I would like to develop my contribution but I am short on time. I hope the accreditations have credibility and that if somebody goes through a FÁS training course, no matter what it is, their expertise and educational attainment will stand up to what is on the certificate. One can put it in any language one likes but that is it.

As I have stated on many occasions, I am and always have been an advocate of the community employment schemes, particularly with regard to how they relate to rural Ireland. I sincerely hope this new board will not alone continue, but enhance those schemes because local authorities are moving away from them due to a lack of funding and outdoor staff. Anything of a community nature that happens in rural Ireland is community employment scheme centred. A major argument is taking place on whether it is training or institutionalised employment. I could not give a hoot what it is called; all I know is that very important work is being done by people who are very proud to be doing it. Unfortunately, there is nothing else for them to do if they did not do it.

I am sorry to state that those who will be appointed to the board will be political appointees. I would have thought the Tánaiste in particular would have learned enough over recent weeks to ensure a broader base and that at least the chief executive would have to come before the appropriate Oireachtas committee for all to see that he or she was the person that should be appointed, irrespective of the Minister in place.

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