Prime Time Heckle - The widening hole in the public accounts - carers, ideascampaign.ie

I'm understanding that Fás story right - duplicate companies set up to siphon off money from a genuine company.

Is there a tree high enough in Castebar ???

"Don't answer that!!"

What the hell ? I just caught the end. More scandal ?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

What the hell ? I just caught the end. More scandal ?

Don't ask unless you want to throw up.

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

What the hell ? I just caught the end. More scandal ?

Don't ask unless you want to throw up.

I've got my plastering bucket beside me. Do tell...

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

What the hell ? I just caught the end. More scandal ?

Don't ask unless you want to throw up.

I've got my plastering bucket beside me. Do tell...

I'm not sure if I can allow memories of that horrific face through my mind again - those memories might become part of my long term memory.

What a vile and despicable slimeball. A tree adorner he should be.

Tell me one word at a time.

But wait until you forget the previous word before telling me the next word.

Go on, you can do it ...

Fás were giving funding (200k pa) to a company called 'meals on wheels' in Castlebar and this consisted of local people cooking meals and delivering them to old people in the community. Like on of those Leader companies set up by earnest and genuine individuals.

It was a really admirable company - genuinely set up to help old people in the area and consisted of earnest locals who wanted to help. So far so good eh?

(are you watching john o'connor teaching people piano on RTE 1 ?)

http://www.entemp.ie/press/2001/200401.htm

Anyway, this programme of 'meals on wheels' was such a success that another Community Employment group got 'set up' also claiming about 200k and was called .... 'meals on wheels' also....

The man who set up this other company also set up a couple of other companies of the same name - and also claiming 200k each, leaving less and less for the original company. Sorry but I missed what they said was done with the money now ....

This is the fella - Eddie Hoban
http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/Mayo/News/ConnTel/Features/EHoban.htm

Quote :

He said: "Community employment schemes have a training element for the participants who must be unemployed. Up to 40,000 people are involved in these schemes around the country. There are 1,100 people from the Castlebar area on these schemes, by far the most number of people per placement officer in the country.
"Tony Cawley and myself were always prepared to take the extra money available coming out at the end of the year. Before I left FÁS my budget was about £4.5 million for that scheme (the community employment scheme) alone, and Tony's was also around the four million pound mark. When the budget comes to the office, the placement officer has almost exclusive rights about how that money is spent. We never got into trouble about it and felt we spread it out fairly evenly.

"A lot of great work has been done with these schemes. From Ballintubber to Roundfort one can see the tremendous environmental improvements

."

The sad thing is that for rural communities a lot of good things have been and are being done.

Bad systems and a lack of oversight seem to have caused this. In a properly run organisation it couldnt have happened.

FAS - Feck All Success as its known. Its been a bit of a black hole for years though hasn't it?

I'm sure it does more good than bad but this sort of thing is going to be an inevitable when money is being thrown at an organisation and proper controls don't exist.

My only real experience of FAS is when my mum lost her job a few years ago. She's a smart woman but a complete technophobe to the extent that she can't use the DVD player. She isn't even curious about computers or the internet. They sent her on a computer course for god knows what reason when it was obviously not something she wanted to do, had any interest in or wasn't remotely related to any of her fields of expertiese - which are many and mainly in hospitality/food preparation. Crazy isn't the word. She's approaching retirement and the value of retraining at her age is questionable anyway.They just wanted to fill up a course and pushed her into a computer skills course that my mum got exactly zero out of. Perhaps I should be happy that the oppertunity was there should she have wanted it but clearly some sort of realistic SWOT analysis type thing with candidates should be undertaken.

shutuplaura wrote:

FAS - Feck All Success as its known. Its been a bit of a black hole for years though hasn't it?

I'm sure it does more good than bad but this sort of thing is going to be an inevitable when money is being thrown at an organisation and proper controls don't exist.

My only real experience of FAS is when my mum lost her job a few years ago. She's a smart woman but a complete technophobe to the extent that she can't use the DVD player. She isn't even curious about computers or the internet. They sent her on a computer course for god knows what reason when it was obviously not something she wanted to do, had any interest in or wasn't remotely related to any of her fields of expertiese - which are many and mainly in hospitality/food preparation. Crazy isn't the word. She's approaching retirement and the value of retraining at her age is questionable anyway.They just wanted to fill up a course and pushed her into a computer skills course that my mum got exactly zero out of. Perhaps I should be happy that the oppertunity was there should she have wanted it but clearly some sort of realistic SWOT analysis type thing with candidates should be undertaken.

I was teaching people probably like your mum and older (people in their 80s) up to last summer and I always argued that there needs to be computer courses completely for leisure given out cheaply or free by the government with no philosophy attached regarding pursuing work or any of that - just purely for use. The wisdom of this isn't really seen though but it is necessary that we shift over to this kind of mindset I've no doubt. The computer is many things but it can be company for those in isolated or rural areas or for people living on their own if they know how to use it. It can be medicine for some people as well as a phone, an encyclopedia, a television ....

It's self-financing to some degree too - 21% VAT on a computer the people buy plus they might get broadband of some kind plus they might buy software or at least there is a market there they are aware of spending money on.

Unfortunately for trainers I think there is more of a merket there for a techno-phobe proof computer operated by conversation. Even the DVD player should be operable by voice at this stage - some of those yokes aren't easy for the best of us.

Jaysus, I just watched the PT video in Fas in Castlebar. Mother of God.

Hoban looked like a man getting rumbled.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Jaysus, I just watched the PT video in Fas in Castlebar. Mother of God.

Hoban looked like a man getting rumbled.

Must watch it again to see how nepostic little despots are running the wheels of this country from behind the curtains like a troop of ignorant trolls under a bridge.

I hope there is a God and I hope there is a Hell for the likes of that c***.

I cant find a link to the Castlebar FAS story you're all talking about - would a kind person put it up here?

Seo chugat.

It's the "Questions over FÁS Job Creation Schemes" link.

Aragon wrote:

I cant find a link to the Castlebar FAS story you're all talking about - would a kind person put it up here?

Aragon, it's the third video item HERE

Questions over FÁS job creation schemes

Snap !

After seeing this, any doubts I had about the wisdom of my decision to leave Ireland were emphatically removed. This is risible, shocking, appalling bullshit. Any vestige of hope I had that Ireland could solve its problems alone has been crushed. This was such a deeply depressing programme, it is questionable as to why RTE would screen it now. If this is, as I suspect, a symptom of a malaise prevelant across the country, then Ireland has no future without root and branch radical reform. Such reform must include the eradication of Fianna Fail. They not only serve no useful purpose but are central to, and go to the very core of, the myriad of problems the country faces. A party as corrupt as this has no place in a functioning democracy.

I don’t know that there’s a whole pile in this. If as was stated the “Meals on wheels” provide 50 meals a day, that would be 18,000 odd meals on a yearly basis with average funding of 400,000 per year through all the companies involved and say at 10.00 Euro per meal delivered, that would take almost half of the total budget of the meals on wheels itself and the other three parish companies providing different social services. There was also a lot of people involved, three at the TV interview plus the Parish priest who seems to have had an input and was fully aware of what was going on.

There would seem to have been something afoot with funding being described as for one project that maybe was actually spent on another Parish service, but I don’t know if there was any evidence of personal enrichment an the taxpayer expense. Needs looking into but I wouldn’t be jumping on anyone’s back just yet.

tonys - what you are saying went through my mind as well although I jumped on a rant above I admit. I'd have to look at the figures as well again but there could have been some good work done by the other community groups. Unfortunately the other stuff seemed to suck away funding from the original 'Meals on Wheels' company however.

And I wonder if the programme wasn't a bit unbalanced as it didn't show what the other four Meals on Wheels were doing - maybe it could have been good work, who knows. Your man admitted though that the other companies weren't producing meals - did you hear that ? They were fixing roofs and doing laundry. All we got really was the laundry and little other detail of what the expenditure was on. Claiming for something you're not doing ... dodgy or immoral don't you think ?

Also the man was in there for 18 years and didn't know the rules about not receiving funding as a trainer when you are in control of a budget and it was clear he signed claim forms. At the least he is incompetent and should be gone years ago. People in power in these places are very quick to crack your knuckles if you don't cross a t or dot an i on their numerous forms so the same strictures if not more should apply to those in positions of power.

Auditor #9 wrote:

tonys - what you are saying went through my mind as well although I jumped on a rant above I admit. I'd have to look at the figures as well again but there could have been some good work done by the other community groups. Unfortunately the other stuff seemed to suck away funding from the original 'Meals on Wheels' company however.

And I wonder if the programme wasn't a bit unbalanced as it didn't show what the other four Meals on Wheels were doing - maybe it could have been good work, who knows. Your man admitted though that the other companies weren't producing meals - did you hear that ? They were fixing roofs and doing laundry. All we got really was the laundry and little other detail of what the expenditure was on. Claiming for something you're not doing ... dodgy or immoral don't you think ?.

The point your man was making was that the company name was “meals on wheels” so if you were doing work for them, say fixing a roof, the expenditure was for “meals on wheels” and was recorded as such although it was not for producing actual lunches or dinners.

Prime Time Prime Time Prime Time

The chairman of the DAA resigned earlier -

Quote :

McGann steps down as chairman of DAA

The chairman of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), Gary McGann, has announced his decision to step down from the board.

Mr McGann said he made his decision to focus his time and energies on his principal role as chief executive of Smurfit Kappa Group in the current global downturn.

He said: “My decision has also been influenced by my former non-executive directorship of Anglo Irish Bank.

“At all times, I acted with honesty and integrity in this role, but given recent commentary about events at the bank, my decision today is made in the best interests of the DAA and of Smurfit Kappa Group.

“I have agreed with the Minister that I will work with the Department of Transport to effect a smooth transition.

“I have enjoyed my tenure as the first chairman of the DAA and extend my best wishes for the future to the customers, staff, management and fellow board members of the company.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0224/breaking76.htm

The English guy is saying we're like the Caiman Islands only without the sun. He says that lax regulation was all what the Celtic Tiger really was .... ..... and that now our economy is falling apart because of that.

Mark Little asks him if the City of London etc. will see Ireland more favourably now and he says "if anything it will be seen in a worse light ..." He's saying the non-compliance was rife in the whole banking sector.

Jaysus

He's saying in shorthand that the Regulator is coming from outside Ireland. The G20 (lite) just met in Berlin and they are gunning for "tax havens".


"Troubled Water"- on Hurricane Katrina - on Channel 4 - Oscar nominated documentary

People ringing from their attics and being told "at this time there is no resue unit" "I'm going to die".