TÁNAISTE and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan was in contact with the Attorney General’s office yesterday in relation to the pension awarded to former Fás director general Rody Molloy, her spokesman said.
The spokesman said the content of an article in The Irish Timeson Thursday had prompted the review. In that article, director Niall Saul was reported as saying he believed information had been "deliberately" concealed from the board by executives of Fás.
“No board member had said that to us,” Ms Coughlan’s spokesman said. “If it is true, then it would change the complexity of things.”
When “we topped up his pension” no one had made any such contention to the department, he said.
As well as Mr Saul, a number of other Fás directors, who were not identified, were quoted in The Irish Times report. “There was a culture of non-disclosure and the board was not told the full facts,” one director said.
Ms Coughlan has a representative on the Fás board, but her spokesman said the contention made by Mr Saul and the other directors had never been made to her department. Labour Party TD Róisín Shortall said she believed the review by Ms Coughlan had come “after the horse had bolted”. She described the deal with Mr Molloy as a “grubby deal”.
One informed source said the deal Mr Molloy was given was the best he could have had under the rules that exist.
A circular from the Department of Finance sets down what applies in a situation where senior figures such as Mr Molloy are retiring early.
The provision of an additional 4½ years of nominal service to Mr Molloy for pension purposes would have required the authority of Ms Coughlan and the approval of Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, the source said.
“The deal you do on the night is very difficult to undo,” another source said.
The internal audit function in Fás is conducting an inquiry broken into 23 different modules and all concerned with transactions and procedures in the corporate affairs division and the procurement process in Fás.
The unnamed Fás directors said they believed they were being asked to resign in the context of the relationship between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, and the latter party’s difficulties with the Nama legislation.
However, Green Party leader John Gormley rejected claims that he or his party involved themselves in “a political deal” to force the resignation of the Fás board of directors.
“It is utter nonsense to suggest that my public call for the Fás board to resign was linked to other political issues.
“My call for resignations came in response to direct questions from journalists. Those questions came on the day the Comptroller Auditor General confirmed that hundreds of millions of euro in taxpayers’ money had been squandered and wasted by Fás.”