Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

This is a difficult position for the taxpayer to be in because FÁS and its agents run many courses throughout the country and the credibility of the courses run by one company has been drawn into serious question. I work from a redacted document released under the Freedom of Information Act 1997. The most important information I need is the name of the company but I do not have that. However, the company involved provided seven courses at a cost of more than €1 million comprising company fees and trainees' allowances. Four of the courses were corrupted because the material results were changed; they were fabricated. The credibility of the awarding of the results goes to the heart of the lack of integrity in FÁS and the rottenness in the system from top to bottom.

The fee paid to the company for the four corrupted courses was in excess of €200,000. The fees paid to the FÁS trainees amount to more than €256,000 and, therefore, the cost of these corrupted courses is almost €500,000. Taxpayers' money was wasted on unfortunate trainees who were conned into thinking they were doing a course. They were not provided with proper materials and did not receive proper results. No audit of the company was conducted, notwithstanding that it had pleaded guilty to FÁS to previously corrupting a course by changing the results. The company said the individual involved had been sacked but it secured a contract for more courses and corrupted the results of those as well.

At the heart of this is an incredible, appalling, disgraceful shame in the running of FÁS. What did the Minister know about this and similar courses? What steps has she taken to recover the money from the company? What other courses was the company retained to provide elsewhere in the country? This case refers only to the north east. Perhaps this happened elsewhere. The integrity of the certification of City & Guilds courses, which are important nationally and internationally, and FETAC courses must be restored. Every FÁS course must be audited from now on. Has the Department conducted other internal audits to establish whether this is an issue throughout the State?

FÁS has a budget of in excess of €1 billion per annum. How much more of taxpayers' money has been wasted? What action has the Minister taken? What briefings has she been given about this issue? More than 440,000 people are unemployed, many of whom will participate in FÁS courses and receive certification. Independent audits need to carried out on the content of these courses, the results awarded and the computers. In the case to which I refer, the computers the trainees were using were clapped out. They had no printers or disks. The trainees were subject to the biggest con in FÁS and probably one of the biggest cons in history resulting in the waste of taxpayers' money.

Fundamental and total reform of FÁS is at the heart of this. Independent accreditation of all examinations is required in order that most of the 440,000 unemployed people who take up the agency's courses can be certain they will get what it says on the tin and they will participate in the course they were supposed to with access to appropriate materials and computers that work. They should not get results that are designed to suit the company and not the taxpayer. Approximately €0.5 million of taxpayers' money has been wasted on a course the results of which were fabricated and with the knowledge that this company was already doing it. FÁS knew it was doing this and yet it gave this company other courses. That is the crime at the heart of this issue.

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