GREG Craig, the director of corporate affairs at Fas, who was suspended last week, wants to tell his side of the story to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Craig spoke to The Sunday Times before receiving notification of his suspension.

Throughout his time at the state training agency, he says he was supported by senior management and only received a “rap on the knuckles” after an internal audit identified misuse of funds in the corporate affairs department.

Chris Cooney, acting Fas director general, refused last week to disclose to the PAC how Craig was disciplined after breaching procurement procedures. Fas has said it cannot reveal the details for legal reasons.

Craig has now said that his punishment was withdrawal of some holiday leave. “Because I was overseas so much, and working on Jobs Ireland, I had accumulated 126 days’ leave, and the punishment was to take 40 of those away from me,” he said. “These were days I should not have had anyway. People were not allowed to carry days. I always felt I got a rap on the knuckles.”

A disciplinary letter from Cooney acknowledged he had not benefited personally from the financial irregularities and that the letter was a formal warning, to remain on his file until February this year.

Craig admits he breached procurement rules. “I accept that I broke many rules but I only [did so] to deliver the goals in the direction the organisation wanted to go, and did so with the approval of my senior managers,” he said. “Any time I mentioned procurement, I was told there was a huge political drive to get the job done.”

Craig reported to Gerry Pyke, a former assistant director general, since retired, and Rody Molloy, who resigned as director general last week. Cooney, then assistant director general, was not one of those who supported him.

Molloy raised questions after the internal audit report over the “appropriateness of rigid public tendering procedures” in Craig’s area, given circumstances including tight deadlines. He admitted in meetings with Pyke and other managers that he may have “unwittingly misled” Craig by giving him the impression the report was focused on procedural breaches.

“He told me the report was nothing to worry about,” Craig said. “The report was to do with procedure, and the nature of the work we do would allow us to breach procedure.”

Craig also defended his role in the Jobs Ireland programme. He was given a bonus for his work on the programme. The €1,000 bonus, paid in 2000, related to €1m sponsorship he secured from the Independent newspaper group for Fas’s Opportunities Fair.

He points to a review of the Jobs Ireland programme in 2000 which found that outsourcing had enabled it to deliver “flexibility and quick response time”. The review said that negative comments on the Jobs Ireland website were coming from internal sources, with some sections of the agency feeling “isolated”.

Craig said he was made director of innovation after the audit report and shortlisted for assistant director general. He was not given an opportunity to speak to the Comptroller & Auditor General during its five-month audit.

The decision to suspend him was “a mechanism to silence me”, he said. “I would be more than happy to go before [the] PAC to give my side of the story.”

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