The bill for providing new offices for civil and public servants as part of the Government's decentralisation programme will be close to €1 billion, according to figures produced yesterday by the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Tom Parlon.
The Office of Public Works believes, however, that the overall project will be self-financing through revenue generated by the sell-off of State property and the early surrender of existing leases on premises.
Under the Government's decentralisation plans more than 10,000 civil and public servants will move to more than 50 separate locations around the country.
Mr Parlon told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service that the cost of acquiring sites for new offices could be €75-€100 million.
The Minister said that the indicative broad cost estimate for construction and fit-out of the office accommodation required under the decentralisation programme could be of the order of €815 million.
He said the figure excluded the cost of information and communication technology and specialised equipment requirements.
According to Mr Parlon, around 210,000 sq m of new office space would be required under the decentralisation programme.The Minister indicated that the decentralisation process would go ahead in stages .
The Government will shortly announce the sequence in which Departments and agencies will decentralise following a report from an expert group. Mr Parlon said that the Government accepted there were problems in relation to staff in some State agencies not being willing to move from Dublin.
He suggested that neither Bus Éireann and the National Roads Authority - where only a handful of staff have expressed an interest in moving to Mitchelstown and Ballinasloe respectively - would be in the first phase of those to be decentralised.
Opposition members of the committee criticised the Minister, however, who, they said, had failed to give answers to whether Departments and agencies would be able to recruit additional staff in their new locations to replace those who had stayed behind in Dublin.
Ms Joan Burton of the Labour Party said that if this happened it would have major additional cost implications.
Mr Parlon told the committee that the Government believed it could generate more than €400 million from the sell-off of surplus State properties after decentralisation.
Mr Parlon said that so far around €85 million had been secured through the disposal of property. The Minister said the Government was spending around €100 annually on leases and rents.
The Office of Public Works believes that savings made through the early surrendering of some leases, in addition to the revenue generated through sell-offs, could make the decentralisation programme self-financing over time.
Mr Parlon said the OPW would manage the disposal of more than 200,000 sq m of property in Dublin so as not to flood the market.
Mr Richard Bruton of Fine Gael was critical that only 22 per cent of locations for decentralisation were in towns designated as "gateways" and "hubs" under the National Spatial Strategy while 55 per cent were in constituencies represented by Ministers.
