FAS's €20 million a week budget politically protected

[patslatt]

Just heard Senator Shane Ross of the Sunday Independent on RTE Radio this morning express dismay that the government hasn't cut Fas's bloated budget given the Controller and Auditor General's Report on expense account extravagances on luxurious expense account spending on top hotels and restaurants in the USA and elsewhere. Ross claims that all political parties benefit politically from Fas activity and protect its €20 million a week budget. How this budget could be so high in the Celtic Tiger years of full employment has to be one of the greatest mysteries of Irish government finance.And what results are achieved in terms of people trained for jobs and at what cost per job placement? Some of that FAS money would be far better spent on eliminating illiteracy in primary schools.

[Macy]

Most of the FAS Budget is (and always was) going straight out in allowances to trainee's and in CE wages. You could drastically cut their budget, but you'd only be moving the spending from FAS back to Social Welfare.

[zakalwe1]

then imagine how the unemployment numbers would look!!!

[Pauli]

It was and remains a trough with expanded capacity for many snouts. In the years of nigh on full employment, it was little more than a slush fund for lavish freebies for executives of the agency and their political masters who were only too happy to board the gravy train and stiff the taxpayer for countless accountability-free jollies.

A total disgrace.

[patslatt]

Most of the FAS Budget is (and always was) going straight out in allowances to trainee's and in CE wages. You could drastically cut their budget, but you'd only be moving the spending from FAS back to Social Welfare.

What's a billion divided by the cost of training per person? If it is €1 BN/€15,000 a year, that's 67,000 people trained a year and in 10 years of the Celtic Tiger,that's 670,000 people trained,a third of the workforce! Now how many people do you know who have trained with FAS?

[cyberianpan]

Most of the FAS Budget is (and always was) going straight out in allowances to trainee's and in CE wages. You could drastically cut their budget, but you'd only be moving the spending from FAS back to Social Welfare.

Is this training good value for money ?

I've heard of the types they employ to create & deliver the training and .. well Fás are saving them from the dole also

CyP

[atlantic]

Spot on, and then you have the serial Fasers,that jump from one programme to another,Knocking out 6 months here, a year there and so on.

Is this training good value for money ?

I've heard of the types they employ to create & deliver the training and .. well Fás are saving them from the dole also

CyP

[bormotello]

Spot on, and then you have the serial Fasers,that jump from one programme to another,Knocking out 6 months here, a year there and so on.

Very popular within parents of IBC, otherwise they will be not able to continue to receive welfare benefits

[feargach]

For the illiterate: full employment means 24 out of every 25 people in work, or 1 in 25 out of work.

So during the period of "nigh full employment" there was NEVER a period where there were fewer than thirty thousand people actively seeking work (we're excluding the long-term unemployed for the moment) who had lost low-skilled jobs and needed to acquire new skills to maximise the return for them and the economy.

So, make sure you have this in context: for the entire period of the celtic tiger, the demand for re-training from unemployed people was more than FÁS could possibly supply due to scarcity of resources.

[lostexpectation]

cant believe they gave the new job of head of fas to the former head of tourism ireland, another person who job is pr, rather then training.