The Government's move to transfer 10,000 civil servants out of Dublin can be made to work, despite difficulties, the State's top civil servant has declared.
Secretary general of the Department of Finance Tom Considine told the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee: "I think things can be managed by taking on board some of the lessons that have been learned."
So far, about half the existing Dublin-based civil and public servants have chosen to move with their jobs, or to transfer to another posting outside Dublin.
Labour TD Joan Burton said the State would end up with thousands of Dublin-based staff "with nothing to do", while recruits would have to be hired for jobs in new provincial offices.
But Mr Considine said the Government had "no plans to duplicate staff. We have no plans where people down the country will do the same work as people still based in Dublin, while people in Dublin did no work".
Despite criticism from Fine Gael PAC chairman Michael Noonan and Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness, Mr Considine disagreed strongly that the Comptroller and Auditor General should take over the auditing of the State's local authorities from the Local Government Audit Service. He said the PAC could demand accountability from the secretary general of the Department of the Environment and Local Government for the money it directs to local authorities.
Both TDs said the PAC could investigate a public-private partnership where the State contributed 15 per cent of the total budget, but it could not do the same for projects run by local authorities, such as the water drainage scheme in Limerick that has cost over twice the original budget.
The Limerick project is set to cost the State up to €60 million more when an arbitrator decides how much a contractor dismissed from the project should receive in compensation.
Mr Noonan said he had been assured earlier this year by secretary general of environment Niall Callan that local authorities had completed 2004 audits, but found out later that 19 county councils and three city councils had done so only in April after they had learned of the PAC's interest.
He said he believed the Local Government Audit Service could ensure the accuracy of the local authorities' financial accounts, while guaranteeing value for money was another matter.
Under questioning, Mr Considine gave a personal guarantee to Fine Gael and Labour that Finance officials had never told Government Ministers or their advisers about the Opposition's budgetary proposals. "I am perfectly happy to give that assurance. I would consider this to be one of the most important things that the department does," he said.
Fine Gael and Labour were annoyed on Wednesday after a special adviser to Minister for Finance Brian Cowen told a Labour Party adviser he knew Opposition parties had been in to Finance to cost proposals.
Responding to criticisms of the public pay benchmarking deal, Mr Considine said he believed public services had improved significantly in recent years.
In time, he said, benchmarking would become a "transparent" method to measure public pay increases, alongside the productivity changes conceded by State workers in return.
