Fás may not get full details of report that cost it €250,000, committee told

FÁS DIRECTOR general Paul O’Toole has told a Dáil committee that the State training agency may not be given full access to aspects of a report it commissioned from accountancy firm Mazars at a cost of up to €250,000.

Mr O’Toole told the Committee of Public Accounts the report had found 18 inaccuracies and two partial inaccuracies in evidence given by Fás to the committee during five appearances in 2008 and 2009.

However, he said he could not confirm if the inaccurate evidence given by the agency amounted to a misleading of the committee. This was because Mazars had told him it would not be able to give Fás details of the inaccuracies due to undertakings of confidentiality given to people participating in the investigation.

Mr O’Toole later said he also could not say for certain that Fás had not misled the committee.

Committee chairman John McGuinness expressed amazement at Mr O’Toole’s statement in light of the cost of the report, which is expected to be €200,000-€250,000. “Ultimately it’s the taxpayer that is paying the cheque,” Mr McGuinness said. “The PAC has to hear all of the evidence, warts and all,” he added, noting it was “unacceptable” for the committee to hear about these issues from media reports.

The Mazars report was commissioned by Mr O’Toole to examine a series of complaints by the former head of Fás’s corporate affairs division, Greg Craig. The report finds that inaccurate evidence was given to the committee, but does not say what that evidence was.

The inability of Fás to access the full report was described as “quite bizarre” by Independent TD Shane Ross, a member of the committee. “It’s crazy. The people who made the report won’t tell the findings to the people who commissioned it,” he said.

Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou McDonald accused Mr O’Toole of making “a play of words” in his failure to confirm that Fás had misled the committee. It was “completely unacceptable” that there appeared to be “an omerta descending on the full facts”.

Mr O’Toole has sent two letters to Mazars over the past week seeking its co-operation on the release of confidential details and said he hoped to be able to provide more information to the committee next week.

This process will include contacting witnesses who co-operated with the investigation on a confidential basis. Some of these are retired staff members of Fás.

Mr O’Toole denied a suggestion by Mr McGuinness that he was making an attempt “to park the issue” and said the current Fás management was “not on notice that the committee was misled”.

He understood some of the inaccuracies might relate to “incorrect dates”. Fine Gael TD Simon Harris rejected this. “No one believes they were all incorrect dates and, if they were, then we have an even bigger problem with the quality of the information.”

Mr O’Toole, who joined Fás in April 2009, said the organisation would “do everything” to restore confidence and trust in the agency. “There is no part of the current culture within Fás that would seek to mislead a Dáil committee,” he said.