THOUSANDS OF JOBLESS people failed to turn up for FÁS interviews, the state training and employment agency has said.
The director general of FÁS, Paul O’Toole, gave the figure to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday, the Irish Examiner reports.
It said that in total, 118,000 people who were on the dole in 2010 were referred to interviews that year by the Department of Social Protection.
However, 40,000 of them did not turn up for those interviews.
O’Toole said that there wasn’t an “absolute requirement” for people to turn up for the interviews.
The Irish Independent reported that FÁS also spent €1.3 million on court cases and investigations involving its staff members.
In total, 14 staff members were investigated.
According to the FÁS annual report for 2010, employment fell by 3.5 per cent (-64,500) during 2010.
The report also said that an increasing proportion of the unemployed were out of work for a year or more, and the long-term unemployment rate rose from 4.1 per cent to 7.3 per cent.
The numbers signing on the Live Register rose by 13,000 during the year, to reach 447,000 (seasonally adjusted) in December 2010.
The number of completely new registrants with FÁS’ Employment Services fell from 116,000 in 2009 to 97,000 in 2010.
At the same time, increased interviewing capacity put in place over the last year allowed the number of client referrals by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) under the National Employment Action Plan (NEAP), at just over 118,000, to rise by 15 per cent over the level achieved in 2009. However, the attendance rate at interview fell by 2 percentage points from 68 per cent to 66 per cent.
More than 64,000 vacancies nationwide were notified to FÁS, an increase of 16 per cent on 2009.
In 2010, 40,000 people (both employed and unemployed) completed evening courses, while 2,400 undertook blended courses and 12,000 participated in online courses.
Thanks to funding from the European Commission, four national and international employment, training/education and advice events were held around Ireland to provide information on job opportunities in other European Member States.
The report also noted that in order to save money on finances, all executive credit cards were cancelled and a corporate credit card that was retained for procurement purposes was also cancelled in May 2010.
Income and expenditure total income was 1,015,503 in 2009, down from 1,059,522 in 2009.
The PAC is currently examining FÁS’s 2010 accounts and reviewing its training.
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