A REPORT due to be published today is expected to say the former director general of Fás, Rody Molloy, should have sought board approval before he signed a €500,000 plus deal with Croke Park in January 2008.
The report by the Comptroller & Auditor General (C& AG) John Buckley, on advertising and promotional expenditure at Fás, is expected to say a deposit of 50 per cent was paid when the contract, for an estimated value of €520,000, was signed.
The contract had to do with the use of Croke Park for the agency’s annual jobs fair and eventually the final cost was €639,000.
A draft copy of the C&AG's report, seen by The Irish Timessays Mr Molloy was only authorised to incur operating expenditures of up to €250,000 in any one transaction. "Over €250,000, the authority lies with the board," states the report.
Mr Molloy resigned from his position in Fás last November as a result of controversy over expenditure.
The report says the jobs fair was held at the RDS from 1997 to 2003, when it moved to Croke Park.
In October 2004 the board was told by the director general that the event was moving to Croke Park and said the change had arisen following careful consideration of a number of issues. “When documents about the decision to move were sought, the examination team was informed that the decision that was notified to the board had been made by the former director general and that no file on the background to the decision could be located,” the draft report says.
Greg Craig, the director of corporate affairs with Fás and the official in direct charge of the event, told the C&AG he was not involved in the decision to move and that the RDS was his preferred venue.
No cost benefit analysis of the RDS or Croke Park venues was held in any of the years between 2002 and 2008.
In an October 2007 memo to Mr Molloy, the then assistant director general with responsibility for the corporate affairs division noted there were only two suitable venues for the event, the RDS and Croke Park.
He pointed out that the agency’s experience with the RDS had been “far from satisfactory” in relation to certain aspects of the event, whereas the experience with Croke Park had been very satisfactory.
But the report points to surveys were carried out every year since 2003 and when the surveys for 2003 and 2004 which were reviewed, it was found that more people had expressed satisfaction with the RDS than had with Croke Park.
The board of Fás is meeting today and is expected to consider the report, which will also be considered by the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.
The C&AG is preparing a second report on procurement practices at Fás, which had a budget of more than €1 billion last year.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, has expressed concerns about expenditure controls at the training and employment agency.
