The Government appears to have shelved its plans to decentralise 10,000 civil servants outside Dublin.
More than two years after the Minister for Finance announced the plan he has said he does not know when an announcement will be made. Just months ahead of a general election, he says the process is ongoing.
He has repeatedly, he says, made clear his determination to proceed with a new programme of decentralisation, but only after proper deliberation.
"I am not in a position to say definitively when I expect a decision to be taken, other than to say such decisions will be taken as soon as is practicable after the conclusion of the current deliberations," he said in a statement.
Mr McCreevy told colleagues in February 2000 that he wanted Ministers to report back to him within weeks with definite proposals and hard possibilities which could be put in train before the summer holidays.
By that time, he said, the Government would be "almost three years in office and it will be necessary to get things under way if we are to show visible progress before the election". It was intended that formal Government decisions on the receiving towns and cities would be made within a matter of months, although the planning, tendering and construction process for new offices could take from two to three years.
Objections by the Civil and Public Service Union to unpopular transfers for its members was a considerable contributor to the delay.
There was further slippage when the Tanaiste and leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Harney, insisted the exercise should not generate a repeat of the earlier behaviour of three Fianna Fβil ministers who had transferred sections of their own Departments to their constituencies.
Adding to the tension between the Coalition partners on the matter, the PD Minister of State, Ms Liz ODonnell, criticised "bogman politics".
Asked Ms Harney's attitude now on the matter, her spokesman said the party always supported the decentralisation proposals but emphasised it would have to be done in a meaningful and efficient way, rather than using a scattergun approach around the country.
Mr Blair Horan of the CPSU said they had heard nothing on decentralisation since last April. "I'm not sure of the current state of play. The last discussion I had with the Department of Finance was in October and they said then there was nothing coming in the immediate future," he said.
At this time last year it was reported that there was concern within Fianna Fβil that a detailed announcement of the successful towns would disappoint and antagonise unsuccessful applicants in advance of a general election.
This followed hard lobbying from more than 100 towns and their elected representatives, but fewer than 30 were likely to be selected. At least eight Ministers, seven Ministers of State and more than 60 TDs and senators wrote to the Minister for Finance in 2000 urging him to move Government Departments, agencies and offices to their own areas.