In July 2003, with all the confidence and aplomb he frequently displayed as a top public servant, Rody Molloy unveiled a new code of ethics for the 2,200 staff in Fas.

Honesty, integrity and public accountability, the state agency’s director-general declared, would be the three “core values”. “All our business dealings will be based on the requirement that Fas secures value for money,” the code warned. Employees should avoid any practice perceived to be improper.

The code was posted on the Fas website, where it remains to this day. Molloy, however, is no longer director-general. Last Monday he self-destructed after being accused of ignoring the ethical standards he expected of others.

His downfall was triggered by receipts that revealed lavish spending by Molloy and his colleagues. For example, since 2004, Molloy, other senior executives and assorted guests, including ministers, spent €643,000 on travel to America at the taxpayers’ expense, mainly on “business” relating to a Science Challenge programme.

On some occasions, Molloy was joined by his wife, Noreen, and the couple travelled business class at a cost of up to €10,000. Sometimes he went 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 and abroad.

Chauffeur services were booked; expensive gifts and pay-per-view movies purchased. There was a $942 (€740) golf game at the Orlando Florida Grand Cypress resort, and even hair and beauty treatments for Mary Harney, the then enterprise 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 had been serious errors of judgment involving public money.

It was Molloy himself who took the fateful decision to be interviewed about all this on Today with Pat Kenny last Monday. Murray Consultants, a PR company hired earlier this year by Fas after the first revelations of spending irregularities, was not consulted. On a bad telephone line Molloy dismissed the bills for pay-per-view movies as “chicken feed” and insisted he was “entitled” to travel first-class. It was car-crash radio.

Within 24 hours he was gone. Dan Boyle, a Green party senator, said he was right to resign given the level of public concern. “All of this comes comes at a time of rising unemployment. It is important for Fas to re-group quickly so it can serve 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 investigations 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 committee, 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 and Auditor General is to start an investigation of its own. And there are probably more details of the controversy yet to emerge. There are more today.

Some time during 2002, Craig phoned Paddy Duffy, a PR adviser and pal of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, and asked him to “come quick” to meet an “interesting guy” called Tony Gannon from Nasa. Gannon, from Donnycarney in Dublin, 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.

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