FAS management Fiasco - Employee Admits €1m Fraud

I dunno Respvblica, I think Shane Ross has been banging on about this for a while but nobody took notice.

I couldn't blame the opposition, but the media and an apathetic public.
A public who has suddenly woken from their apathy.

Shane Ross hardly constitutes "The Opposition". He was previously a member of Fine Gael but for the past number of years he has been an independent senator for the Dublin University in the Seanad!

Fair point, re: Ross.

I'm not a fan in general of blaming the opposition for stuff it didn't do (while in opposition).
Having said that I am annoyed with FG for not fighting the last election on the economy, but unsurprised. A populist party doesn't want to tell people how bad things may get.

All the large parties in the Dáil are populist, the Greens evidentially included.

The truth won't get you elected until the #### hits the fan and even then it may not.

eoinmn wrote:

I dunno Respvblica, I think Shane Ross has been banging on about this for a while but nobody took notice.

I couldn't blame the opposition, but the media and an apathetic public.
A public who has suddenly woken from their apathy.

Aragon has repeatedly mentioned the potential for conflict of interest between Mary Harney and Brian Geoghan in relation to his Health related consultancy work for HIQE.
It was said on the thread that this had been widely known as an issue but not dealt with on the press. Any idea why?

cactus flower wrote:

Aragon has repeatedly mentioned the potential for conflict of interest between Mary Harney and Brian Geoghan in relation to his Health related consultancy work for HIQE.
It was said on the thread that this had been widely known as an issue but not dealt with on the press. Any idea why?

I don't know and I've wondered about it myself.
I suspect Madam has a soft spot for Harney. Anyone else think that could be true?

eoinmn wrote:

Fair point, re: Ross.

I'm not a fan in general of blaming the opposition for stuff it didn't do (while in opposition).
Having said that I am annoyed with FG for not fighting the last election on the economy, but unsurprised. A populist party doesn't want to tell people how bad things may get.

I agree. In many ways I think their line was worse than Fianna Fail's, as they clearly went against their own beliefs in their election platform. Fine Gael definitely knew that vast amounts of money were being wasted, but criticised FF for not spending enough and put forward a big budget themselves. There is always the possibility that Fianna Fail just didn't get it.

johnfás wrote:

All the large parties in the Dáil are populist, the Greens evidentially included.

There are degrees of populism!
But you are right, there was no Ron Paul character here in 2007 warning us about the impending crisis. Not in politics, anyway.

cactus flower wrote:

eoinmn wrote:

I dunno Respvblica, I think Shane Ross has been banging on about this for a while but nobody took notice.

I couldn't blame the opposition, but the media and an apathetic public.
A public who has suddenly woken from their apathy.

Aragon has repeatedly mentioned the potential for conflict of interest between Mary Harney and Brian Geoghan in relation to his Health related consultancy work for HIQE.
It was said on the thread that this had been widely known as an issue but not dealt with on the press. Any idea why?

That wouldnt surpirse me. It would be fortunate for us if someone like Aragon had the required family connections to make it into family gael and get elected as a TD and bring this up.

eoinmn wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Aragon has repeatedly mentioned the potential for conflict of interest between Mary Harney and Brian Geoghan in relation to his Health related consultancy work for HIQE.
It was said on the thread that this had been widely known as an issue but not dealt with on the press. Any idea why?

I don't know and I've wondered about it myself.
I suspect Madam has a soft spot for Harney. Anyone else think that could be true?

Of course it's true. Wasn't she one of her TDs in Dun Laoghaire at one stage? She is not going to highlight improper behaviour on the part of Harney, real or perceived, in her organ of record.

Why haven't they named him ? Does he have to be charged before they can name him ? I assume he is older than 16.

Well spotted tonys.

from the same article

Fás has now sought legal advice to determine if it has the legal authority to withhold pension money in lieu of the defrauded finances, which has never been done by a state agency before. The pension due is worth less than half of the embezzled funds.
http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=IRELAND-qqqm=news-qqqid=39393-qqqx=1.asp

What are the chances that Fás won't get the permission to lift your man's pension ?

FÁS shouldn't get permission to touch his pension imo. His assets should be frozen by the fraud squad until the investigation is complete and the matter has been tried in a court. The fact that FÁS are actually looking into this shows what a bunch of gobshites they are and why the words "education" and "training" should never be used in a sentence remotely connected with them.

There may be others that this person has defrauded and dividing up his assets at this point may be premature.

I see some jail time in this criminal's future. I just hope the court sees it the same way and doesn't use the pension excuse as a mitigating factor. If I hear that "he comes from a good family," drivel one more time, I swear I'll swing for someone.

All in all, another example of the uselessness of FÁS. Unless you're a criminal that is, or an employer looking for really cheap labour. Imo, FÁS should have been the first thing executed to facilitate cutbacks.

It's a paradox that Fás was growing bigger and bigger as employment was falling - if that isn't pure "Irish" I don't know what is.

Well, the workforce was getting bigger and bigger and FAS deals with all trades apprenticeships now doesn't it? Did they not provide all the safety training for the construction sector (about 12% of the workforce until last year, now about 2% of it). They operated community schemes in areas that had been neglected and nothing else was going on. People will say they were used as local political vote getting excercises, but so are all public services.

Yes, their role also grew from being an organisation which dealt mostly with retraining.

In Germany the sector dealt with by FAS would be a sizeable proportion of the education sector - vocational / skills training is highly esteemed there.