Shane Ross (Independent)

Why can we not have people who know about this area and have a forensic or career interest in it, or a mixture of people with different skills? These guys are members of one club, we all know that. They go up to Government Buildings every few years, cook up some pay deal and then sit back, organising social partnership boards left, right and centre. That is not the only board with the social partners on it. These directorships are gigs, they are jobs for the boys, they are their rewards. FÁS is not the only board — there are dozens of them — where they pick €10,000, €12,000 or €14,000 a year. If one is in the right place in ICTU and IBEC, one is given one of the gigs. It is a wonderful set-up but it does not make for good board membership and it does not make for accountability.

There are some very strange ironies and some very sad aspects to this story. That FÁS is a jobs creation agency and that it should be overspending money on luxuries is sad and ironic. That it intended to move to Birr, County Offaly, begs questions, not so much about the Taoiseach but the coincidence of it moving to Birr, County Offaly, and the chief executive coming from Birr, County Offaly, is something which deserves to be challenged and questioned.