Decentralisation to be phased, says Flynn

A "big-bang" approach to the planned relocation of 10,000 civil and public servants out of Dublin was never envisaged, the chairman of the implementation group for the decentralisation programme has told a Dáil committee.

Mr Phil Flynn said decentralisation would be carried out in phases, and that the decision on sequencing and on the selection of organisations that would form part of the initial move would be taken shortly.

Mr Flynn told the Dáil Committee on Finance and the Public Service yesterday that some agencies and Departments were proposing that they should be "an advance guard" or "pioneers" in the process and this was being considered.

But he said he had informed the Government that if decentralisation was to succeed it would have to invest in childcare facilities for staff. He said his group was also examining issues such as jobs for spouses in regions outside of Dublin and care for aged parents.

Mr Flynn accepted claims by the committee's opposition deputies that the programme could lead "to a breakdown of services" for the public. But he said his group was working to guard against such possibilities.

Mr Flynn described as "very difficult" the job of the implementation group, but that he had seen no evidence it could not or would not be done.

He said agreements had been completed on providing premises in seven locations and a further 16 were at an advanced stage.

Earlier the committee heard from the Department of Finance that 7,800 staff had expressed an interest in moving to one of the 53 new locations. Mr Michael Scanlan, assistant secretary at the Department of Finance, said some of these were already working in locations outside of Dublin.

Around 4,800 staff in the capital had indicated they would like to move out of Dublin. But he said some of these might want to go to existing civil service offices and not to some of the scheme's proposed new locations.

Mr Scanlan said there had already been more applications from clerical officers to move out of Dublin than there were posts available. He added that there were far fewer applicants from personnel in State agencies than from civil servants. There were also difficulties presented by lack of applications from staff in technical grades.

He said that while locations such as Navan - earmarked for the probation service - appeared oversubscribed, in reality no probation officers had applied to move there.