Vote 34 - Enterprise Trade & Employment

Calls for the Board of FAS to resign. Two banquets at the Shelbourne with budgets of nearly 10,000 € each. Nearly 500 euro on cosmetics for those events.

Roddy Molloy is the Taoiseach's friend from Offally? The Board is made up of political appointees?

Government votes only brought in with majority of 3 this morning. Bertie will be wheeled in tonight to make up numbers to get the Finance Act through.

The board makeup is Here

More accurately HERE

Code of conduct for FAS directors.

FAS annual accounts for 2007 HERE

Subhead D1.

Enterprise Ireland get 100 Million for administration and general expenses. Hmmm....

On the FÁS website,

This makes for interesting reading.

Fás internal audit report raises serious concerns

Irish Times.

Irish Times wrote:

The report found that Craig contracted out work on a new website, Jobs Ireland, without first consulting the Fás IT department and despite the fact that Fás already had a website.

The report said that while Craig and his department "were under some pressure to deliver the overseas jobs fairs as part of Jobs Ireland, it should have been possible to meet their web requirements from internal Fás IT resources".

The audit team estimated that €1.7 million was spent on the new website. "Fás probably paid €1 million more than should have been the case." The board was never informed of the cost of the external development of the Jobs Ireland website, the report said.

JobsIreland.ie is a redirect for fas.ie

According to this, Craig was working with a company called Ultimate Communications.

FAS audit uncovers misuse of millions

Times Online wrote:

The report also investigated Jobs Ireland, a FAS recruitment campaign. It found that the state agency “made a serious and costly error” by creating two job-vacancy and client-registration websites, Job Bank and Jobs Ireland. Craig’s department contracted out the work without informing FAS’s IT staff.

Ultimate Communications was given a three-year contract in 2000 to manage Jobs Ireland, more than likely based on a verbal agreement, less than 10 working days after it was incorporated. FAS paid the company €3.55m in the first 12 months. Auditors say FAS was most likely the company’s only client and that it must have been given an indication of the level of business it was likely to receive.

In January 2001, a tendering process was begun for the Jobs Ireland programme, which the report said was “an attempt by corporate affairs to retrospectively justify the role of Ultimate Communications”. It contained no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of Ultimate Communications.

I thnk this refers to the advertising campaign for Jobs Ireland, not the website design.

Actually, Ultimate Communications, incorporated on 24th July 2000, did develop the website.

Ultiate Communications

The listed Directors are Audrey Browne and Niall Gallen.

Ultimate Communications are instrumental in offloading a good whack of the budget so ? When were they operating - are they still at it ? This latest fiasco is being investigated now over a period of half a dozen years now but there could be a reason for looking back beyond 2003.

The Independent this morning has this below about Harney and the Govt. jet which should be renamed the Queen Mary. Fás people get allowances of €100 per day and while on official business, SPOUSES get 50% of that.

Quote :

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney personally requested the use of the Government jet for the controversial FAS trip to Florida at a cost of up to €80,000 to taxpayers.
..
The Irish Independent has also learned Ms Harney, who travelled to Florida with senior FAS executives, department officials, and her husband, Brian Geoghegan, was receiving more than €100-a-day subsistence money from the taxpayer when FAS picked up her hairdressing bill in a Florida hotel. Like all government ministers travelling abroad, she was entitled to a daily allowance for "incidental expenses".

As well as the daily allowance for travelling abroad, Ms Harney, like other ministers, was receiving other "general expenses".

She is entitled to unvouched allowances of €13,390.66 a year.
..

The trip was arguably a non-urgent use of the Gulfstream IV, which costs the taxpayer €7,000 an hour to operate. The return trip would have cost around €80,000 in fuel, with added landing premiums for private aircraft.

FAS has banned first-class travel for executives and cut spending on credit cards in the wake of "public outrage" about its overseas travel bills.
..

He had spent €27,000 on it in 2005, €6,000 in 2006 and €118,000 in 2007, mainly to cover the cost of hotels and air flights while on official business.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/revealed-skyhigh-cost-of-fas-florida-trip-1556226.html

This makes the 60k which the Dept of the Environment is spending on a bat house in Kerry look like chickenfeed.

Fás spend 300k an acre for offices in Birr.

EX-FAS director-general Rody Molloy is to be grilled about the €1.5m purchase of land in his home town that the state training agency may never use.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will today seek answers as to why a five-acre site was bought in Birr, Co Offaly, last year for a new headquarters, even though plans to decentralise 400 FAS staff already appeared to be dead in the water.

Mr Molloy, who resigned last week over the FAS overseas expenses scandal, will also be quizzed at a PAC hearing today about an office in the town which FAS has spent over €1m fitting out, even though it houses just 20 staff.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/molloy-braced-for-grilling-over-836415m-land-deal-in-home-town-1562963.html

Yeah, just heard that on Week in Politics. How much is land in Birr normally ? Is 300k per acre a lot ?

They also said Craig is due before the PAC !

Did you hear that Rody Molloy saying he didn't like flying

Auditor #9 wrote:

Did you hear that Rody Molloy saying he didn't like flying

I did indeed. I thought I was watching The Panel when I heard that ..

Is the IDA paid out of the Dept. of Enterprise Trade and Employment too ?

Because they're worth it ?

IDA calls board meeting in luxury Paris hotel

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ida-calls-board-meeting-in-luxury-paris-hotel-1566299.html

By Nick Webb, Sunday December 07 2008

The IDA held a board meeting at the luxurious George V hotel in Paris last May.

It was part of a €20,000 three-day overseas visit to Paris and London by the state company.

The five-star hotel, frequented by the likes of Angelina Jolie, Pamela Anderson and Madonna, costs from €695 per night for a basic room. The royal suite at the hotel is the seventh most expensive hotel room in the world -- costing a staggering $16,000 a night, according to the Wealth bulletin.

IDA board members travelled by economy class to London for a meeting and a stay at the €330 per night Dorchester Hotel before taking up their first-class seats on the eurostar to Paris. They returned home by economy class flights. No spouses or partners made the trip.

The IDA holds 10 board meetings per year, with one of these held overseas, usually in the US or other countries where the IDA has an office or is seeking to open operations.

There are 13 members of the IDA board, including chief executive Barry O'Leary.

The members include former PD co-founder Paul Mackay, Central banker John Dunne, VHI chairman Bernard Collins and Amarin boss Tom Lynch.

The London part of the trip included a dinner for 54 guests and clients at the Irish embassy in the city.