GREG CRAIG, the executive at the heart of the ongoing Fás controversy, has told The Irish Timesthat everything he did was in pursuit of official policy and known to his superiors.
He said the State training authority has acknowledged he did not benefit personally from any of the expenditure matters currently being investigated by the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts (PAC), and he has criticised the internal audit report that led to the PAC inquiry being established.
The inquiry was initiated as a result of an internal audit report that details a series of alleged breaches of procurement rules in the Fás Corporate Affairs Division involving substantial amounts of money. Mr Craig was the director of the division during the period concerned.
As an example of what he says is wrong with the report he cited its findings about a website, jobsireland.com, which he had a key role in creating. The website was set up using outside contractors and despite the fact that Fás had its own jobs website.
"Fás made a serious and costly error in relation to the tandem development of two similar web-based job vacancy and client registration systems," the report found. "Fás probably paid at least €1 million more than should have been the case."
However, documents from the time show the website was considered a huge success and was praised by then minister for enterprise, trade and employment Mary Harney and former director general of Fás Rody Molloy, who resigned last week.
Mr Craig said the Fás website was not manned outside office hours and was constantly crashing at weekends during jobs fairs. He said the website he set up was a huge success and that at one stage David McKenna of the Marlborough recruitment firm offered to buy it for £4 million.
Mr Craig said the controversial audit report does not put its findings in a proper context. He said his superiors knew he was operating outside normal procurement procedure and that he felt he had a "derogation".
He said he learned from the radio news on Thursday that he had been suspended on full pay from his job. Christy Cooney, assistant director general of Fás, told the PAC hearing on Thursday that Mr Craig had been suspended, ever though he himself had not then been informed.
He said he has yet to receive the letter Mr Cooney said was sent out to him on Thursday, informing him of his suspension.
Mr Craig has been out sick from work since June of this year but was ready to return to work at the time of the sudden suspension. Mr Cooney told the PAC the suspension was in relation to new matters that had arisen from new audits.
When Mr Molloy appeared before the PAC in October, he said Mr Craig would not be returning to the position of corporate affairs director. This had never been said to him, Mr Craig said, and he still considers himself to hold the position.
