Seanad debates
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Labour Services (Amendment) Bill 2009: Committee and Remaining Stages
4:00 pm
John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)
I move amendment No. 11:
In page 13, line 23, after "Foras" to insert the following:
"or any person whom is classified within An Foras as a Director or Assistance Director General,".
This amendment seeks to extend the category of staff member in FÁS who can have his or her employment terminated for one of the listed reasons for non-performance of his or her duty. As stated previously, this Bill was introduced following a number of revelations about activities that took place in FÁS. The Bill is aimed principally at remedying the lack of action that was taken and the lack of oversight by the board of senior management within the organisation. The legislation, as put forward, does not include any level of direct supervision by the Minister of the activities of senior managers. From the knowledge we now have of what happened in FÁS, we know it was those senior managers who took many of the bad decisions and who managed to squander, in some cases, quite large amounts of public money. The fact that there is no provision for the Minister to deal directly with those senior managers in terms of the performance of their roles and their functions in the organisation is a significant loophole. The purpose of the amendment is simply to extend to senior management the same provisions proposed under the Bill for board members if they fall down in the operation of their duty as senior managers with FÁS. The amendment is especially important in the light of what we know about what went on in FÁS and will be instrumental in ensuring similar activities do not occur at senior management level in future. I trust the Minister of State will be in a position to accept the amendment.
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