FAS chief defends executives' expenses (again!)

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z105

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Here we go again - this money pit needs to be sorted out -

The Chief Executive of FÁS, Roddy Molloy, has defended spending by the agency on travel and entertainment for top executives and their wives.
The State training agency spent €643,000 in four years on transatlantic travel promoting it's Science Challenge programme.
Speaking on RTÉ radio Mr Molloy said the money was spent developing relationships with the science community in Florida and that the programme was a very good one that had benefitted Irish students.

He said that all he could do was explain what happened and he did not believe the agency had anything to hide.
Mr Molloy said FÁS does have a very serious checking process for expenses and that people only get what they are entitled to.
He also defended taking his wife on some trips, saying she accompanied him when it was appropriate.
He said he was entitled to travel first class but traded down to business class when his wife travelled with him.
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people only get what they are entitled to.
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Doesn't mean that what they are entitled to is correct/good value for money:mad:
 
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While I would never pay for business class or first class flights when travelling on business (and I sure as hell wouldn’t pay for them when going on holidays) I can see the justification for the head of an organisation such as FAS using business class (but not first class). The state should not spend one cent for his wife to go anywhere; there is no circumstance when the spouse of an employee (or director or owner) of a company or state organisation should have their travel paid for unless they are also travelling in an official/business capacity.
 
I never realised Florida was such a hot bed for the science community, I'd always associated it with sun holidays and theme parks. My mistake.
 
If he was going on business then the missus should have been left behind unless she paid for it herself.
 
Oh and the $900 round of golf - all in the interests of science I guess :rolleyes:

And why do they have have credit card limits of 80,000 euro pray tell anyone?

And there is the one about the Glass Thermometer presented to Mary Hanafin by the science students FAS had been meeting, which was factually paid for by FAS for them to present to Ms.Hanafin and then it cost in the region of $400 to ship it back to Ireland !!!

I mean what the heck type of organisation or rather disorganisation are we dealing with here?:mad:

This is absolutely scandalous. Change the parameters in which expenses are doled out - NOW !
 
I have attended Fas delivered course, arranged and delivered by Baggot S/ SCR for all the Dublin participants, in Mullingar, the Fas administrators travelled down on Tuesday for the preparation , we finished at 17:00 on the Weds, they travelled back to Dublin on Thursday
( and the few course participants who went down on Tuesday night because of the 9am start , witnessed plenty of hospitality in the bar the night before.)
 
In relation to downgrading his 1st class flight, does anyone know if :

a) He used his 1st class ticket to exchange for 2 Business class flight (which mean we paid for his wife to fly to america)

b) Downgraded his ticket & used his own money to pay for her ticket (which would mean we actually saved money)

I have a feeling from the way he was saying it on the radio is was option "a".....if so, this is effective theft & he should be sacked.

His general attitude of "I'm intitled" and "sure a few movies is no big deal" and "that must have slipped in by accident" (an expensive beauty treatment) smacked of such arrogance & self righteousness it was incredible.
 
Mrs Sox has travelled with me a few times when I've been overseas but we've always paid her way ourselves. I'd be too embarassed to try and claim expenses for her travel, unless it was a work-related function/deal celebration with a partner invited. Does this guy have any shame?
 
Kerak said:
and the few course participants who went down on Tuesday night because of the 9am start
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What?!? It takes an hour to drive down, two at the most. There is zero justification for paying for anyone to stay overnight if they came from Dublin. No bar receipts should be accepted for expenses unless clients were being entertained (and this was not happening on a training course).
 
Purple said:
What?!? It takes an hour to drive down, two at the most. There is zero justification for paying for anyone to stay overnight if they came from Dublin. No bar receipts should be accepted for expenses unless clients were being entertained (and this was not happening on a training course).
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I have a relative who works for the civil service in a department that requires him to work outside Dublin alot of the time. He was telling me that they had a problem with people leaving the job early on Friday to get back to Dublin. How did they solve it? They decided to pay an overnight allowance for the Friday night even though no-one uses it. If he is back down in the same place on Monday morning, he gets the allowance for Saturday and Sunday night as well. Can't remember what the allowance was but it was something like €145 per night. On top of that he got living allowance of €44 a day. And then of course there was milage. The best part of it was that all of these expenses were unreceipted and tax free. He was staying in B&B's and living on a lot less that €44 a day but still got the full allowance. I won't tell you how much 'profit' he reckons he made last year. He had colleagues who stayed with family and friends and still got the allowance.

The whole system of expenses in the public sector (here we go again I know) is a disgrace.
 
Sunny said:
He was staying in B&B's and living on a lot less that €44 a day but still got the full allowance. I won't tell you how much 'profit' he reckons he made last year. He had colleagues who stayed with family and friends and still got the allowance.

The whole system of expenses in the public sector (here we go again I know) is a disgrace.
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In the interest of balance, I don't think this is confined to the public sector... in my organisation (non-public) this is common practice amongst reps on the road. They have a set overnight allowance/meal allowance etc.. and they are forever trying to make a saving on this. Rightly or wrongly a lot of people view this as an income supplement.

Thought the FAS CEO came across very badly - perhaps he's not the best person to be speaking to the media. Surely someone in his organisation might have suggested he leave the live interviews to someone a bit more media savvy. The only thing that will be remembered from the interview are the "I'm entitled to First Class travel" and "that's chicken feed in the grand scheme of things" statements.
 
Howitzer said:
I never realised Florida was such a hot bed for the science community, I'd always associated it with sun holidays and theme parks. My mistake.
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Not condoning the FAS guy but Florida does have Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center and Space Institute.
 
gianni said:
Thought the FAS CEO came across very badly - perhaps he's not the best person to be speaking to the media.
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I thought the role of the Chairman in an organisation was to set the 'climate' and ensure that those in operational roles act in accordance that 'climate'.

If Mr. Molloy was entitled to fly first-class, or to use business class with his wife, then who was signing off on his interpretation of what he could or could not do ? Who was signing off on his travel arrangements and expenses ?

I'm not defending him but, to me, the issue is more than just €10 pay-per-view movies. There is a whole corporate governance issue at play here.
 
In the interest of balance, I don't think this is confined to the public sector... in my organisation (non-public) this is common practice amongst reps on the road.
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That's a different matter as it's not public money being used.

The whole "deal" that any CEO of FARCE, sorry FAS, needs to looked at and looked at immediately.
 
The way that I read it is that FAS is part of the Civil Service and the grades are linked to equivalent grades so a Senior Officer in the civil service who qualifies for 1st class travel the equivalent will also qualify. In essence the travel and subsistence rules are set in stone.

Every man and his dog knows that T&S is a good earner so no one is going to ask for change. A fortune would be saved if it was all receipted and limits set but hey this is ... Ireland.

noah
 
When I first heard the stuff about business class flights for the wives, my reaction was that somebody would have to be fired immediately. However, the story about downgrading from first to business has some validity. Many, many years ago, I got a very new employer to pay for weekend flights to Rome for my missus, on the grounds that the flights for two including the weekend were cheaper than the flights for one returning on the Friday.

Perhaps the problem was with the first-class travel policy in the first place. This is a fairly outragous extravagance for anyone. I don't have a problem with business class, particularly of someone is expected to be at work on the day after a transatlantic flight, but first class is a bit much. As is the Merrion Hotel bill/tip, and the pay-per-view bills, and the unspecific 'merchandising' etc.

I'm on a fixed overnight subsistence rate for travel within Ireland of €145 approx. Some nights I make a few quid, and some nights I lose a few quid, depending on the cost of the hotel. I'm not going to share a loo in Mrs Murphy's B&B to make €30 - life's too short.
 
Chap reminds me of Heather Mills, though that's unkind to her. First class is generally not paid for by anybody, except us it seems as taxpayers.

Anybody who flies reasonably frequently would realize that while the cost difference is huge the comfort difference between first and business is trivial. He comes across as someone naive to how airlines price seats or even how business works.

First class is there to bump up frequent fliers, and for the odd celebrity or heiress with more money than sense.

I'd doubt that any of the leading Irish companies would pay ~15k to fly the CEO (though the banks might have) to the US. Bill Gates traveled coach and did ok. Many of the US companies here have a coach policy for employees (often enforced from the Irish rather than US side).
 
I took over 100 business flights last year, most within the EU but a few to the USA and Central America. In every case I worked the next day (or the same day). Most of the flights within the EU were there and back the same day... I see no reason for anyone below ministerial/ Secretary of Dept (or CEO of FAS) to travel business class. There is no reason why the state should ever pay for a first class flight anywhere.

BTW, €145 for overnight sounds about right. Mileage rates should not exceed €.35 per Km.
 
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