Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for his comments and tomorrow I will take them back to the members of the Committee of Public Accounts. We appreciate the support we have received. However, having said that, I agree with the Minister of State that one of the major challenges facing FÁS is to deal with the tsunami of unemployed people crying out for retraining and support. They deserve and should get services of the highest standards because more than €1 billion of taxpayers' money has been spent to provide those services.

Further examinations of FÁS are ongoing. The Comptroller and Auditor General is due to publish a report shortly on other aspects of the FÁS operation. The Tánaiste and the Minister of State are aware of the review of the golden handshake given to Mr. Molloy, which scandalised so many people. The committee is eagerly looking forward to sight of that report and it is hoped to have it in ample time to begin our further investigations on 26 November. Once the Comptroller and Auditor General finalises that report, it will go back to the Department and the Tánaiste. I appeal to the Minister of State to pass the report through the Department quickly so that the Committee of Public Accounts can get on with its work.

As the Minister of State said, it is important that FÁS is allowed to get on with its work but, in allowing that, we must not conveniently ignore the many major issues still outstanding. We have a responsibility to get at the root of what happened in FÁS over a period of time of full employment when it had a budget of more than €1 billion. The atmosphere was that it has so much money it did not know what to do with it and if it did not use it, it would lose it. That was especially the case in drawing down European social funding; that money was put through the system and sent out the other end without any great accountability or monitoring of how it was spent.

The investigations to date have brought an unprecedented level of correspondence and complaints to members of the committee, to me as Chairman and to the Comptroller and Auditor General. An avalanche of complaints has been made by members of the public and members of the organisation itself, some of whom have remained anonymous for fear of reprisals against them. There is a responsibility on us all to deal with those issues. Having said that, we must be mindful that the vast majority of people working in FÁS throughout the country are honest and decent and want to serve the public. There is a balance of accountability and performance.

See this speech in context