Fás official gives his side of the story to PAC

Greg Craig says he will not attend the Public Accounts Committee unless he gets access to his files in Fás

THE 88-PAGE document sent to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday by Greg Craig represents the first occasion on which his side of the story has been submitted to the committee's inquiry.

Given that the ongoing controversy over expenditure at Fás has a lot to do with Craig and his stewardship of the authority's corporate affairs division, it is obviously unsatisfactory that it has taken up to now for his voice to be heard by the committee.

In fact the situation may be even more unsatisfactory than that. According to Craig, neither he nor his staff responded to the original internal audit report that led to the controversy over expenditure controls at the authority, either in its draft or final form.

And then, Craig says, when staff from the Comptroller and Auditor General's office came to review the internal audit report, none of them spoke to him or his staff, even though their division's activities were at the core of the report.

The CAG's office has not as yet had an opportunity to respond to this latter point from Craig.

Craig was invited by the committee to appear before it late last year, but responded that he did not want to unless he could get unsupervised access to his files in Fás.

According to him, such access has not been granted and so he has forwarded a written submission rather than choose to appear before the committee in person. Craig is currently on suspension on full pay.

From the committee's point of view, a document delivered late in the day is obviously not as valuable as oral evidence which could be examined. It must now decide to what extent it can take Craig's submission into account when drafting its interim report.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, John Buckley, has already put in train his own inquiry into expenditure controls in Fás. Craig, in his submission, makes it clear he expects that Buckley's staff will speak with him and the staff at the corporate affairs division.

In is submission, Craig says he is not sure to this day if the CAG knows of his concerns about and criticisms of the original audit report. His view, essentially, is that while the audit report lists alleged breaches of the procurement rules at Fás by his division, in fact the Fás board over a period of years knew of and approved a system whereby an advertising firm engaged by Fás was used to procure a range of services for Fás, without the authority's procurement processes being availed of.

Furthermore, he says the board at Fás knew of the amount of money that was being spent in this way.

Craig's submission does not deal with all the issues raised in the original audit report concerning his perceived closeness with persons and firms that were receiving work from Fás, nor does he deal with particular contracts and the sums agreed for them, as outlined in the report.

However he strongly defends the Jobs Ireland website which he was instrumental in establishing in and around 2000, as part of the Fás effort to attract foreign skilled workers to Ireland.

In the audit report, it is stated that up to £1 million more than was necessary was spent on the site, which duplicated an internal Fás website. Craig however says the audit report's assessment "was arrived at without a proper analysis of the information technology marketplace in 1999/2000. During that period the dotcom market was hugely expensive."

He also says any impression from evidence heard by the PAC from the two former director generals at Fás, Rody Molloy and John Lynch, that they had little knowledge of the initiative is incorrect.

"The Jobs Ireland Programme had the full knowledge and support of all Fás senior management, director generals and board. A complimentary report was produced praising the initiative."

He says he was asked by Lynch to produce a business plan for the programme and website and that when the plan was completed it was given to Molloy. He says the website was launched by Molloy at a ceremony in Prague in October 2000.

In his submission Craig says he was not in favour of the decision to move the annual Opportunities jobs fair from the RDS to Croke Park in 2004 and that Molloy would confirm this.

"In my opinion, and this is in no way critical of the excellent facilities in Croke Park, the RDS was a more suitable venue for an exhibition of the type and size of Opportunities."

He outlines in his submission the difficulties he had with the venue but says that notwithstanding his concerns, "at the request of Fás management, Fás corporate affairs was obliged to make the exhibition work in Croke Park.

"There was, however, significant additional costs in accommodating and managing the exhibition in that venue."

The PAC was told by Molloy that the former assistant director general and incoming president of the GAA Christy Cooney, had no role in the decision to move to Croke Park.