Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State and I wish him well with this important Bill. FÁS has been the subject of significant debate over the past 12 months or so. The Minister of State said the agency, as the national training and employment authority:

[H]as the remit to provide a range of proactive job-related services, supports and programmes to assist individuals to remain in and return to the labour market. The agency also promotes workforce development by upgrading the competencies and qualifications of individuals and by providing and facilitating targeted training programmes and services to employees and especially to the unemployed.

That is a positive statement. Currently, more than 400,000 people are out of work and this presents a golden opportunity to FÁS to liaise with the many skilled people who are out of work. Thousands of carpenters, electricians, blocklayers and builders are unemployed and marvellous programmes could be put together by the agency to utilise their skills. For instance, significant work could be on local authority projects. Poor quality local authority housing could be renovated through a FÁS scheme with the skilled people available while parks could be upgraded and roads widened. These skilled tradesmen could be organised by the agency to do great work and I hope the Minister of State will ensure this happens.

Senator O'Toole is probably correct that the new board should have three sub-committees, including audit and finance sub-committees. Over recent years there was a lack of control in the agency from the top down and, therefore, control must be restored. I hope the Bill will provide mechanisms to address this issue but while the composition of the board is important, the mechanisms, checks and balances put in place are more important. FÁS had too much money over the past ten years and staff did not know what do. There was abuse left, right and centre. Investigations should be carried out in certain areas. For example, a number of schemes have been highlighted. Pass rates on a scheme in Dundalk were falsified and works were carried out on the private house of a sponsor in Waterford while in my home town, Castlebar, grants were drawn by a group for a meals and wheels scheme but another group said they were not used for this purpose. There was argument and counterargument and nobody seems to know what happened. The Committee of Public Accounts has investigated a number of these issues and the Comptroller and Auditor General will report on them.

FÁS should have checks and balances in place. Consultants were hired to carry out checks and we need to evaluate whether these people, who were paid by the State to carry them out, did so. If they did not, there should be consequences. The kernel of the wastage problem lies in the lack of checks and balances. Consultants who made external evaluations did not do them properly or in accordance with the remit given to them by the board of FÁS or the Minister. They should be brought to task. We must have real control in this area. If consultants had carried out checks in Dundalk, Waterford, Castlebar and elsewhere and reported that work was or was not being done properly, we would not be in this position.

Great work has been done by FÁS. We are inclined to think everything in it is bad. Senator Carty who is in the House knows Mayo Abbey well. I do not know whether the Minister of State has visited it but every Minister should visit the abbey to see what has been done there.