Five departments have yet to move any staff from Dublin

Five Government Departments included in the Government's decentralisation programme have yet to move any staff out of Dublin.

Under the programme announced in December 2003, the Government is seeking to relocate more than 10,000 civil servants to 58 locations outside the capital.

It initially said the programme would be completed by the end of last year.

However, according to Dáil replies given by various Ministers to Labour's Róisín Shortall and the Green Party's Éamon Ryan, just 2,400 staff have as yet been assigned to locations outside the capital, and of these just 800 are in place at 17 locations.

The departments that have not decentralised any staff are Environment; Enterprise, Trade and Employment; Transport; Defence; and Foreign Affairs.

Minister for Finance Brian Cowen, who has responsibility for the programme, said he expected that by the end of 2007 the number of staff who had relocated would have risen to more than 2,000, operating from 36 locations.

Mr Cowen's own department has 118 staff in Tullamore under the programme.

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said no civil servant in the department had yet moved. He added that an advance party of 40 staff was expected to be in place in Wexford by mid-year.

Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea said it was not anticipated any staff would move until a new building was completed and fitted out in late 2008.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin said an advance move of about 100 members of staff would take place by this summer.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said personnel were expected to move in the second half of this year.

Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue said an advance group of 44 staff had relocated to Fossa in Co Kerry last September. Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey said 31 of his staff had decentralised to Clonakilty, Co Cork, and a further 26 to Cavan.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said 113 civil servants in his department had been reassigned. He said by the second half of the year the department would have a presence in seven locations, with 400 posts moved.

Some 27 officers of Mary Hanafin's Department of Education have relocated, while the number who have moved at Mary Coughlan's Department of Agriculture was 200.

Minister for Community, Gaeltacht and Rural Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív said 79 of the department's staff had relocated, while Séamus Brennan said 122 officers of the Department of Social and Family affairs had moved.

A number of Ministers indicated that former members of their departments had transferred to other departments, and would relocate with those departments.