Up to eight decentralised Government departments will be open around the country as early as next year, it was claimed today.
The Office Of Public Works also said the first phase of the €900 million euro scheme would see a further nine offices ready for occupation for civil servants in 2007 and the remaining four in 2008.
"It is going to take a couple of years to get it all together," OPW minister Tom Parlon told today's Oireachtas Committee on Finance and Public Services today. "It is a fully voluntary scheme. People who decentralise will choose to be decentralised."
Mr Parlon said the OPW would do its best to purchase office space at reasonable prices around the country and that vacant government offices in Dublin could be reused by other departments or sold off.
"The public is going to get involved in a competitive tender process and we will get the best bargain for the State," he said.
"There are other departments who are crying out for alternative locations within Dublin. There is an issue about the Department of Health at the moment and the poor quality of accommodation they have.
"If another department was to become available I'm sure they would want first option on it."
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton criticised the overall decentralisation plan for lacking a strategic approach. "We could be exposed to very long delays before decentralisation is resolved completely," he argued.
But Mr Parlon said he was convinced that decentralisation "will offer considerable benefits for all the departments involved, the communities to which they will be relocated, the staff that will transfer and the country as a whole."
Some of the nationwide locations where a total of 3,492 civil servants will be relocated include Carlow, Longford, Newcastle West, Athlone, Sligo, Dundalk and Donegal. The committee considered revised spending estimates for the OPW, which amount to €469 million - an eight per cent increase on 2004.
PA