The effort of FAS to defend everything that has come out in recent days has been pretty feeble to say the least. No attempt has been made to justify the incredible extravagance compared to the number of jobs associated with it.

We're giving FAS the right of reply in the Sunday Independent next weekend but I don't know yet whether they will take it. I'd like to think that they will, because this was madly extravagant.

Even the attitude yesterday, when he [Rody Molloy] tried to justify bringing his wife on trips by saying that he was downgrading himself from first class to business class -- that's just farcical. It's ludicrous expenditure in terms of jobs creation at home.

Target

The board of FAS must now be the target of some attention. If they knew about it what are they going to do about it?

First they need to decide if they knew about it and if they didn't they need to find out why.

The fact that the Taoiseach has backed Mr Molloy is a little bit worrying. I would hate to think that FAS as a body is being defended by a certain political party.

When a particular party starts doing that there is a fear that the body could become the property of the party. I think that has been in the undergrowth for some time and could surface now.

I think that there is going to have to be a massive cull in FAS.

In terms of the investigation, I hope there will be more to come. We're doing more investigating this week and I suspect there will be more.

There are a lot of documents to get through. At €1bn FAS have the biggest budget but there could be other State agencies doing similar things.

This is the first time I've ever come across anything as blatant as this.

Most of the time, people in these positions are careful about how they spend taxpayers' money but you have to wonder now if there are similar situations.

When I asked for the information under Freedom of Information Act they said that it would cost €1,000. I said 'fine, okay' because I don't like to let money get in the way of things like this. But they were very obstructive of it.

Luckily I can afford to do it, but when they produced all the stuff it only cost €400.

Any ordinary citizen would not be able to pay that out their own pocket. They weren't initially very helpful at all.

I think its probably indicative of the attitudes in other areas.

Should heads roll?

I think they will almost certainly have to.

What's going on in FAS is utterly extravagant, totally indefensible.

- Shane Ross