The Public Accounts Committee chairman, Bernard Allen, has described the financial deal on the resignation of Roddy Molloy as the director general of FÁS as a sweetheart deal, and the equivalent of winning the Lotto.
Mr Molloy resigned from the state training agency last year after controversial travel expenses were revealed. Mr Molloy's departure package included an annual pension of €111,000; a tax-free retirement lump sum of over €333,000; an ex gratia severance payment of over €111,000 and an extra four and a half years of pension service.
Tony Jordan of the Department of Finance told the Committee the package of pension terms was brought before his department at at time when the Tánaiste wanted to effect urgent change at the top of FÁS.
Earlier, Deputy Allen has asked who had signed off on Mr Molloy's pension. The Secretary General of the Department of Enterprise, Seán Gorman, said he was responsible and added that there had been the threat of court action. He added, however, that Mr Molloy's pension was in line with what he would have got if he was dismissed.
Fine Gael's Jim O'Keeffe said this all sounded like an old pals' act, for a man whose position at the time had been untenable.
The new Director General of FÁS, Paul O'Toole, told the PAC that the advertising budget of the state training agency has been reduced by 90% this year.
This follows revelations in a recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General that FAS spent €48m in advertising and promotions in the six-year period to 2008. This includes over €600,000 on an advert that was never used.
Mr Gorman, told the Committee that legislation was being prepared which would change the structure of the FÁS board.
FÁS chairman Peter McLoone said there appeared to have been a culture among the FÁS executive of non-compliance with internal financial procedures and, in some cases, a culture of circumventing those procedures.
He said that in his time on the board, since 2006, it had not had any reports indicating that spending on ads and promotion was out of control.
