Vote 34 - Enterprise Trade & Employment

Ye heard this on the news I'd say - the shocking amount of spending that's been going on by Fás. The Director General Rody Molloy was on Pat Kenny this morning and I'm sure I heard him say at one stage "can't they eat cake" ...

from the Indo:

Quote :

FAS chiefs enjoy a good life
Luxury business-class flights for boss Rody Molloy and his wife, a €7,000 night out in a private dining room at the five-star Merrion Hotel, golfing at exclusive clubs, beauty salons and pay-per-view hotel movies are among the more extravagant costs incurred by top brass at beleaguered state job-creation outfit FAS. After a three-month investigation, Shane Ross and Nick Webb blow the lid off the rampant spending excesses of the key officials at the crisis ridden semi-state body.

Air Fares

Director-General Rody Molloy and his wife travelled widely on behalf of FAS.

In a four-year period, Molloy, sometimes flying with his wife, clocked up almost €48,000 in business-class airfares. In February of this year they incurred an airfare bill for a return trip to the east coast of America for €7,500... [read more on the link]

..

Hair and Beauty

FAS corporate affairs director Greg Craig's company credit card was also used to cover a $410 bill at Solutions on West Cocoa Beach, Florida, also in August 2005. Solutions is a beauty and nail salon...

...

Golf Games

A Fas credit card was used to pay $942.53 for Rody Molloy to play a three-ball golf match at the Orlando Florida Grand Cypress Resort Golf club, described as "a golf resort more grand than you ever imagined". ..

..

Dinners

Fas held a €200-a-head dinner for 33 people in Dublin's five star Merrion Hotel in June 2006. They took a private room...

...

Travel

FAS spent almost €643,000 on travel to the US for Rody Molloy his wife, key executives and FAS guests in just four years...

...

Chauffeur Services

During the visit of US astronaut Eileen Collins in 2006, FAS spent €13,000 with Pro-drive Limousine & Chauffeur services in less than a week...

...

Credit Cards

Greg Craig had a visa card, paid by FAS, with a credit limit of a staggering €76,000...

...

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/fas-chiefs-enjoy-a-good-life-1550136.html

Today with Pat Kenny
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/player_av.html?0,null,200,http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-rte-todaywithpatkenny-Monday.smil

Quote :

Mr Cowen said Mr Molloy would appear before the Public Accounts Committee in the normal way this week and that there was also an investigation pending by the Comptroller & Auditor General into some matters at Fás.

I know him personally. He has been an excellent public servant over the years and I have every confidence in him," Mr Cowen said

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1124/breaking56.htm

Hmmm. Now what sort of ancient justice can we met out to those who willfully waste taxpayers money. Is this not a form of theft?

Make an example! Make him pay it all back. That would be fair.

Respvblica wrote:

Hmmm. Now what sort of ancient justice can we met out to those who willfully waste taxpayers money. Is this not a form of theft?

Make an example! Make him pay it all back. That would be fair.

It's exactly what it is - theft. The ruling party gets to call it "entitlements" and "appropriate level of spending befitting the office" and such and such but I think the word might be 'gouging' - Sidewinder keeps using it.

Will this be punished by the C&AG ? Hardly - he could be gouging too for all we know.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Respvblica wrote:

Hmmm. Now what sort of ancient justice can we met out to those who willfully waste taxpayers money. Is this not a form of theft?

Make an example! Make him pay it all back. That would be fair.

It's exactly what it is - theft. The ruling party gets to call it "entitlements" and "appropriate level of spending befitting the office" and such and such but I think the word might be 'gouging' - Sidewinder keeps using it.

Will this be punished by the C&AG ? Hardly - he could be gouging too for all we know.

Gouging it is.
speaking of sidewinder - Like Rock of Cashel, a legend on p.ie. And both seem to have disappeared. mores the pity.

Respvblica wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Respvblica wrote:

Hmmm. Now what sort of ancient justice can we met out to those who willfully waste taxpayers money. Is this not a form of theft?

Make an example! Make him pay it all back. That would be fair.

It's exactly what it is - theft. The ruling party gets to call it "entitlements" and "appropriate level of spending befitting the office" and such and such but I think the word might be 'gouging' - Sidewinder keeps using it.

Will this be punished by the C&AG ? Hardly - he could be gouging too for all we know.

Gouging it is.
speaking of sidewinder - Like Rock of Cashel, a legend on p.ie. And both seem to have disappeared. mores the pity.

Ah no - sidewinder does appear from time to time on p.ie and he posts on the Pin too. So does someone called 'roc' on the Property Pin.

I heard the interview with Roddy Molloy and it was a bit like looking behind a veil. Behind the veil, there is this sense of entitlement and a total lack of public responsibility. I mentioned it to someone in the public sector I think well of, and he thought Molloy was hard done by.

Does it all depend where you are standing? Where are the limits to what is acceptable?

Ah, they're alive TBTG

cactus flower wrote:

I heard the interview with Roddy Molloy and it was a bit like looking behind a veil. Behind the veil, there is this sense of entitlement and a total lack of public responsibility. I mentioned it to someone in the public sector I think well of, and he thought Molloy was hard done by.

Does it all depend where you are standing? Where are the limits to what is acceptable?

Molloy was hard done by .. ? I suppose it really does depend on how it might compare to your private sector friend's circumstances and not only that but on the achievements of Fás; people should be rewarded for doing a good job but that needs to be able to be measured. Do Fás do, have they done, a good job ? Is Fás worth saving ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

I heard the interview with Roddy Molloy and it was a bit like looking behind a veil. Behind the veil, there is this sense of entitlement and a total lack of public responsibility. I mentioned it to someone in the public sector I think well of, and he thought Molloy was hard done by.

Does it all depend where you are standing? Where are the limits to what is acceptable?

Molloy was hard done by .. ? I suppose it really does depend on how it might compare to your private sector friend's circumstances and not only that but on the achievements of Fás; people should be rewarded for doing a good job but that needs to be able to be measured. Do Fás do, have they done, a good job ? Is Fás worth saving ?

I guess there is a baby there in the bath water?

cactus flower wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

I heard the interview with Roddy Molloy and it was a bit like looking behind a veil. Behind the veil, there is this sense of entitlement and a total lack of public responsibility. I mentioned it to someone in the public sector I think well of, and he thought Molloy was hard done by.

Does it all depend where you are standing? Where are the limits to what is acceptable?

Molloy was hard done by .. ? I suppose it really does depend on how it might compare to your private sector friend's circumstances and not only that but on the achievements of Fás; people should be rewarded for doing a good job but that needs to be able to be measured. Do Fás do, have they done, a good job ? Is Fás worth saving ?

I guess there is a baby there in the bath water?

Hmm ... Senator Shane Ross just said it cost the Indo €1000 for photocopies of the Fás expense accounts ... That's Freedom of Information for you.

The Examiner is continuing this morning with the Fás story. The agency is REFUSING to clarify expenses. (Discussion with Public Accounts Committee Chairman also on Morning Ireland this morning)

Quote :

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

€5.7m bill: Fás refuses to clarify expenses

By Mary Regan, Political Reporter
THE state training agency Fás is refusing to hand over details of how it spent a massive €5.7 million on travel and other expenses in 2007 to the Dáil committee investigating its financial affairs, it has been revealed.

Fás is also refusing to give the public accounts committee (PAC) full details of its own internal audits, which have large sections blacked out in submissions made to the committee.

Fresh revelations of waste show the €5.7m travel and subsistence claim for last year amounts to more than €2,500 for each of its 2,200 staff.

Large sections BLACKED OUT

Quote :

While Fás is refusing to fully disclose how this money was spent, separate figures released under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) over the weekend show €642,000 was claimed on expenses for travel to the US over the past four years.

This included first class flights for senior executives and their wives, expensive rounds of golf, pay-per-view films in hotel rooms and a bill for a beauty and nail salon.

PAC chairman Bernard Allen (FG) said that a precise breakdown in terms of the €5.7m overall travel and subsistence claim last year has not been disclosed.

“They have given us subheads of the expenditure but not the full information,” he said.

He said the committee got copies of the Fás internal reports two weeks ago but that “large sections were blacked out”.

BLACKED OUT - like some of the Bush Administration's stuff.

Legal Advice

Quote :

Fás is claiming legal advice indicated they did not have to disclose certain information to PAC which is carrying out an investigation following claims of financial irregularities in how the agency spends its annual €1 billion budget allocation.

Mr Allen said he will ask Fás chief executive Rody Molloy to disclose the full details of the legal advice when he appears before the committee on Thursday.

Thursday should be interesting so. Why should we have to pay exorbitant sums of money to get these details of spending not to mind resort to legal measures to get this detail at some stages ?

Quote :

“We... broke no rules, no regulations,” Mr Molloy said on Today with Pat Kenny.

In one case, Fás executives gave a €903 tip to staff following a €200-a-head meal in a Dublin hotel.

Gravy gravy gravy for everyone.

Quote :

One former Aer Lingus employee, who contacted this newspaper, pointed out the airline has not had a first class section since the early 1990s, meaning the agency responsible for creating jobs must have been using a non-Irish company for its travel arrangements.

Fine Gael spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment Leo Varadkar said the pricey airline tickets were in breach of Department of Finance travel guidelines which states that: “Officers who travel abroad should limit reimbursable expenditure to the minimum, consistent with the requirements of the visit.

More in The Examiner

For anyone interested, this subject is getting discussed at length on radio 1, on the PK Today show - I'll link later when it's up.

Will Fás be made an example of now I wonder ? FG are asking for a "back him or sack him" stance from FF.

Into the bargain Shane Ross is questioning the cost of getting the information and how it looks more like a barrier than a cost. He says he was originally quoted 1000€ but they dropped it to 400€ once he said he was taking it.

Ross on the radio this evening said the Director for Corpo Affairs in Fas has a €76,000 credit card limit.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Ross on the radio this evening said the Director for Corpo Affairs in Fas has a €76,000 credit card limit.

Shane Ross is a right hero for this isn't he ? He's making the Seanad look sexy almost.

There's such an amount of embarrassing stuff on Fás EVM - have you read through the Examiner piece above ? OMG

All the FAS stuff is in this Vote. Can we keep the Fas discussion here maybe.

I can't see 1 Billion in FAS expenditure up there..

Can we move all the FAS stuff to vote 34?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Can we move all the FAS stuff to vote 34?

Done

Roddy is gone. Resigned.

Who's next ?

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Roddy is gone. Resigned.

Who's next ?

One down, 299,999 to go. He put up a bit of a fight - some of these people are brass necked.

Someone on Prime Time - Ross - said the Board was rotten too. One or more of them next ? Lots of skeletons will be shaken out on Thursday.

Even Cowen saying he was a man of integrity .. bullshit - he hardly knew what was going on.

Big shake up due in this country.

Shane Ross?

He is a nice guy.

FAS have a board of 17.
5x Bertie Appointees
5x Union appointees
5x IBEC appointees
2x others.

Weird thing is that FAS are a member of IBEC. Only state agency to be a
member. They pay IBEC 50K per annum in membership fees. Go figure.

There was an enormous slush fund generated out of the property boom that was used to buy up the employers' organisation as well as the public sector. The Press would not say a word against overdependence on property because of the enormous advertising revenue. There were times when the Property Supplement was bigger than the paper.

The OECD report gave out not only about the number of government agencies like FAS, but also about the lack of oversight and control of what they were up to and even the lack of clear function and brief in some cases. The Auditor General was the only man. He does not seem to have looked very hard at what was going on. Everyone outside, like the Press, and the employers, had their faces to deep in the trough to worry about it.

Are the hearings still going to go ahead on Thursday does anyone know ? Mroning Ireland had Bernard Allen on saying that perhaps the likes of Peter McLoone would be on to take questions but that it was up to Fás if anyone was to be put forward.

I hope it goes ahead. Molloy was just the start of it - it'd be great if this virulence could be sorted by rooting out only one man.

The Taoiseach has again asserted that Mr. Molloy is a sound chap and great to resign.

Both FF and FG seem to agree there will be a severance package i.e. golden parachute. Enda Kenny thinks (RTE lunchtime news) that he should only get it if he "cooperates with the Oireachtas Committee".