WHENEVER THE board of Fás next meets, chairman Peter McLoone has indicated that all of its 16 members intend to resign. Such a step is long overdue. The Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) produced a damning report in February which found that Fás executives and board members had wasted public money through excessive foreign travel incurred at exorbitant cost.
The PAC did not call for the board’s resignation at that time although it was highly critical of its performance. And when, according to Mr McLoone, the board later sought direction on two occasions from the Government as to its future, it was told to continue in office, to implement the recommendations made by the PAC and to co-operate fully with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its investigation of the operations of the training agency.
The CAG’s report, which was received by Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan in June, dealt with advertising and promotional spending at Fás. However, the document was only laid in the Dáil library last week, just before a three-month deadline for its publication expired. The CAG found evidence of a lethargic response from the executive board to large and repeated overspending on advertising from 2002 to 2008. This included €600,000 on TV commercials that were never broadcast and €622,000 for which there was no evidence of goods or services having been provided. The report was a further indictment of the board’s failure to ensure that spending was kept under control.
Ms Coughlan, who had delayed publication of the CAG’s findings for three months, said last week that she would accept the resignations of Fás board members if offered. But the Government had directed the board to continue in office in June when the Minister either knew of the contents of the CAG’s report or was aware of its imminent completion and could have anticipated its likely adverse findings. In either event, the Government’s handling of the issue lacks both consistency and conviction. The Government appointed the board, membership of which includes no fewer than five representatives from different Government departments. In those circumstances, it is hard to understand how the failures were allowed to continue for so long.
Fás is a major State agency. It employs some 2,272 people and has an annual budget of more than €1 billion. The failure of its board raises questions about composition and competence. In a combination that may well reflect the social partnership ideal, its members are drawn from government, trade unions and employers and include representatives of employees and of youth. But if board members lack some of the necessary skills to do the job properly – awareness of corporate governance standards allied to competence and experience – then their fitness to serve in such a capacity must be questioned. Indeed the whole debacle should prompt a reassessment by Government of the qualifications for membership of State boards.