英文毕业论文

1、文章来源:http:/www.times on li ne.co.uk/tol/news/world/irela nd/article5258241.ece?t oke n=nu II&o fset=0&page=1From The Sun day TimesNovember 30, 2008Life in the Fas laneHow exactly did bosses at the controversial state training agency sp end its ?1bn annual budget?Mark Tighe, Ste phen O?Brie n and Ric

2、hard OakleyIn July 2003, with all the con fide nee and aplomb he freque ntly dis played as a top p ublic serva nt, Rody Molloy un veiled a new code of ethics for the 2,200 staff in Fas.Hon esty, in tegrity and p ublic acco un tability, the state age ncy?sdirector- gen eral declared, would be the thr

3、ee“core values ” .“ All our bus in ess12” thedealings will be based on th e requirement that Fas secures value for money, code warn ed. Empio yees should avoid any p ractice p erceived to be improper.The code was po sted on the Fas website, where it remai ns to this day.Molloy, however, is no Ion ge

4、r director-ge neral. Last Mon day he self-destructed after being accused of ignoring the ethical sta ndards he exp ected of others.His dow nfall was triggered by receipts that revealed lavish spending by Molloy and his colleagues. For exa mple, since 2004, Molloy, other senior executives and assorte

5、d guests, in cludi ng mini sters, spent ?643,000 on travel to America at thetaxpayers? expense, mainly onbusiness ” relating to a Science Challengeprogramme.On some occasions, Molloy was joined by his wife, Noreen, and the coupletravelled bus iness class at a cost of up to ?10,000. Sometimes he went

6、 alone,first class. Fas staff, who have been under Molloy?s guidance since August 2000,also wined and dined extravagantly, running up large bills in hotels at home andabroad.Chauffeur services were booked; expensive gifts and pay-per-view moviespurchased. There was a $942 (?740) golf game at the Orl

7、ando Florida GrandCypress resort, and even hair and beauty treatments for Mary Harney, the thenenterprise minister, in 2004. All of this was paid for on executive credit cards.By the end of last week, after a public outcry, Fas had to admit that there hadbeen serious errors of judgment involving pub

8、lic money.It was Molloy himself who took the fateful decision to be interviewed aboutall this on Today with Pat Kenny last Monday. Murray Consultants, a PRcompany hired earlier this year by Fas after the first revelations of spendingirregularities, was not consulted. On a bad telephone line Molloy d

9、ismissed thebills for pay-per- view movies as “ chicken feed ” and insisted he wasentitled ” totravel first-class. It was car-crash radio.Within 24 hours he was gone. Dan Boyle, a Green party senator, said hewas right to resign given the level of public concern.All of this comes at a timeof rising u

10、nemployment. It is important for Fas to re-group quickly so it canserve Ireland?s work and training needs,” he said.Regrouping will not be a simple matter. There are other problems at the state training agency, much more worrying than reckless spending in a hair salon.There are two garda investigati

11、ons into matters involving procurement procedures and staff at Fas. The Dail?s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is also investigating these issues and other irregularities amounting to millions.Greg Craig, a suspended employee criticised in a damaging internal audit, wants to testify before the commi

12、ttee, admit what he has done, defend some of it and tell all he knows. His testimony is likely to be uncomfortable for the board and other senior staff at Fas.When the accounts committee has completed its work, the Comptroller andAuditor General is to start an investigation of its own. And there are

13、 probably more details of the controversy yet to emerge. There are more e quick ” to meet anSome time during 2002, Craig phoned Paddy Duffy, a PR adviser and pal of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, and asked him tointeresting guy” called Tony Gannon from Nasa. Gannon, from Donnycarney inDubli

14、n, was head of education at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the three men discussed how they could use his position to benefit Ireland Inc.” Duffy said.We came up with the idea that it would be great if Irish students could goout and sample some of Nasa?s amazing research,We put our heads to

15、gether and my patrwas to write up a story that couldbe presented to ministers. The programme tied in with government plans forcentres of excellence in science and research.-a”heaGdi,vFeansthaerrganogedfor a dozen students to travel to Florida for two weeks in 2003.The scheme has since grown consider

16、ably.Today we have 150 students in17 of the top research institutes in America studying with a dozen Nobel prizewinners. Ireland is the only country that has this access,” said Duffy.The programme costs ?1.5m a year, and Duffy claimsaevery penny goes onstudents ”. This is not the case. Some of the b

17、udget has been spent on flying FasexecutivesA breakdown of spending on the Science Challenge project, obtained byFine Gael this weekend, reveals that 84% of the 2003 budget was spent onadvertising and PR. In 2005, ?804,533 out of ?866,62993% was spentunder these headings.The scheme was set up to sen

18、d students to intern abroad,” Fine Gael said.It is outrageous that Fas would spend virtually the entire budget on advertisingand promotion. ”Take the Science Challenge and see where it takes you”, was a slogan in aFas ad in 2005, but, as last week?s revelations made clear, being taken to Floridawas

19、a key aspect of the programme. Duffy feels partly responsible for the factthat five ministers Harney, Micheal Martin, Mary Hanafin, Michael Ahernand Tony Killeen have visited the programme in three years.I have a background in government and I always told Fas to ensure theyhave political support,id”

20、. he saDuffy admits that people havejustified complaints” about Fas expenditure,but a new “lean and mean ” version should be safeguarded and strengthened.Fas is now reviewing the science programme. Whatever internal conclusions are reached, the public will take some convincing that it was not justad

21、viser said:dreamt up by an agency with too much cash to spend. As one former politicalThe big question about Fas is: what was it doing with a ?1 billiona year budget? It obviously couldn?t spend the money and had to come up with imaginative ways of making sure there was nothing left at the end of ea

22、ch year.That, for me, is what Florida wa s all about. ”Eamon Gilmore, the Labour party leader, said the way the scheme wasWhat were its top brass doing inoperated and overseen by Fas didn?t add up.Florida looking at the space centre? Were they arranging apprenticeships for astronauts? ”IT ALL starte

23、d with the tip-off received by Harney in October 2004. An anonymous letter alleged serious financial irregularities and malpractices involving Craig, Fas?s director of corporate affairs, dating back a number of years.Craig had a budget of ?12m a year, so the claims were taken seriously and passed on

24、 to the state agency. Fas had to act. An internal audit was launched inNovember 2004. No evidence was found to prove any of the allegations in theletter, but the p rocess un earthed other issues of concern, which were the n in vestigated.The eve ntual audit report, INV137, detailed Craig?s cavalier

25、attitude to spending and p rocureme nt rules. The first the p ublic heard of it was last April whe n it was detailed, without n ames and other sp ecifics, in a report from theComp troller and Auditor Gen eral.The report cited issues for concern in volvi ng about ?1.3m in spending.Among the p roblems

26、 were con tracts awarded for twice the no rmal amount, and firms give n work in breach of no rmal ten der pro cedures.An edited version of the internal audit was obta ined by The Sun day Times in June and the paper n amed Craig, who had just left Fas on sick leave. The gardai bega n to in vestigate

27、asp ects of the report. Enda Kenny, Fine Gael leader,described it as“ damning ” and said it revealed a“culture of waste ”亶The Dail committee has bee n exam ining Fas since the report, and age ncy executives have app eared before it on three occasi ons. So far, as one” the TD mittee member pu

28、t it, Molloy and his cohorts have not bee n help ful.“ Molloy?s attitude was ,attack is the best form of defenee?,He explained that after Molloy resig ned last week, an app eara nee by Fas senior“ a calmer app roach”man ageme nt on Thursday resulted inHowever, for Bernard Alle n, the committee chair

29、ma n, Fas is still too slowto co-op erate with his committee. “ We should n?t have to wait to read things in through the answers from Thursday and we will be following up those unanswered questions. We did get some amazing informati on. ”n ews pap ers, and some docume nts we get are cen sored,” he s

30、aid.“ We are goingAmong the information from last Thursday was that Gerry Pyke, Craig?s immediate superior, retired earlier this year. Pyke had signed off Craig?s expenses. He has not had a chance to comment publicly. The PAC asked if Fas would examine what role Pyke had, but the agency did not make

31、 any commitment on it. There is no suggestion that Pyke did anything wrong.It also emerged that Craig had been suspended following a separate internal audit, which began last summer. At Thursday?s hearing, the Fas official s were almost comically reluctant to mention Craig by name, apparently due to

32、 legal advice. At one stage Donal Sands, assistant director general in charge of finance and IT, turned to Christy Cooney, another assistant director general, and asked:Can I say his name?” An embarrassed Cooney nodded and Sands did.The committee is investigating complicated issues, and has to sort

33、out differences of interpretation. At one stage during a previous hearing, for example,Molloy claimed that at all times he supported the investigation into Craig and insisted that recommendations made in the audit were followed. However, documents obtained by Fine Gael suggest that Molloy had critic

34、ised the scope of the audit and the time it was taking.Molloy also rejected two recommendations in the report: that there be an independent audit of the media advertising budget in Fas over the last four years, and that there be a division in the Fas corporate affairs division so it no longer handle

35、s press queries as well as advertising and procurement. The auditors constantly had to defend their work.Craig says he wants to speak to the PAC. He claims others in Fas knewwhat he was doing.They said ,make sure you deliver?. They appointed me director of innovation a year ago because of my ability

36、 to be creative and break the rules. I was given a brief to continue in the fashion I?d done for years, saidThe PAC is likely to demand evidence for Craig?s claims. Meanwhile, a second garda investigation rumbles on into allegations that a Fas employee used fake companies to obtain money from the ag

37、ency.ENTERPRISE minister Mary Coughlan was en route to the Persian Gulf with a trade delegation last Monday and missed Molloys dramatic radio broadcast. She knew something was up when her mobile phone began beeping frantically after landing in Dubai.The tanaiste spoke several times to Sean Gorman, h

38、er department?s secretary general, as the story developed. Molloy spoke to Gorman on Tuesday morning and indicated his intention to resign. There were a number of phone calls over severance and pension issues and it was almost lunchtime in Dubai onTuesday still morning in Dublin when Coughlan was ph

39、oned by Molloy to say he was resigning.The man drew his own conclusions in terms of the political process andwhere things were going,” a government official said.The controversy was a further setback for a government already struggling in the opinion polls. Molloy?s reported ?500,000 severance packa

40、ge had to be defended, for example, with ministers claiming it was not a penny more than he was entitled to under statute.aeveryBrian Cowen, the taoiseach, had insisted on Monday that he had confidence ” in Molloy. Many analysts believed this was a mistake, but a formerMolloy was apolitical adviser

41、said the comments had to be taken in context.dead man walking after the Pat Kenny interview, and it was a question of himrealising that the only course of action was resignation,” he said.A taoiserequiring a particular result needs to be careful not to say anything that drives aperson in the media g

42、lare back into t he bunker. ”Gilmore highlighted a more general concern for a government that is beingconstantly accused of wasting money in the first half of this decade.Thetaoiseach does not have any sense of the public anger at the extravagance andsplurging of tax payers? money, ” the Labour lead

43、er said.Is this sort of carry onhappening elsewhere? ”Gilmore wondered why successive enterprise ministers had not questionedFas about what must have appeared as extensive travel expenses in its accounts.It?s the job of the minister to approve the expenses regime in Fas,” he saidThere was embarrassm

44、ent for Harney, who had to admit that she had visitedthe hairdresser?s three times while in Florida with Fas in 2004. The agency paidfor each wash and blow dry using Cra ig?s credit card.Dealing with the current mess falls to Coughlan, and she has already experienced difficulties. When this newspape

45、r revealed the damning audit involving Craig?s spending, Coughlan had yet to receive a copy. When she did, she promised to act quickly. But attempts to persuade John Buckley, the C&AG, to undertake a review of Fas were unsuccessful. He preferred to wait until thePAC had completed its work. Instead C

46、oughlan will have to concentrate on one area within her control the Fas board.That the state training agency is in for a shake-up is hardly in doubt. TheFas directors who met Coughlan in her department on Friday promised that past failings in spending controls would not be repeated. The agency is pr

47、omising to bring in external consultants to tighten up the audit procedures.Naturally there is speculation that Fas will be reduced in size. The community employment schemes could go to the Department of Social andFamily Affairs, while the Florida space programme would fit the remit ofScience Foundation Ireland.It is possible that Fas will be told to go back to doing what it was set up to do: training apprentices