The Government remained committed to its decentralisation programme and it was "slowly and steadily" being implemented, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said yesterday. Chris Dooley reports.
Speaking to journalists after he had addressed the Impact conference in Killarney, Mr Ahern was dismissive of a report that he had ordered a review of elements of the programme relating to State agencies.
About 2,300 State agency posts are to be moved out of Dublin as part of the programme to relocate more than 10,000 public service jobs.
Many of the State agency staff affected hold specialist posts and cannot be easily transferred to other jobs should they choose to remain in Dublin.
Asked if a review of this aspect of the programme had been agreed with Ministers last week, Mr Ahern said: "I don't want to be going back over yesterday's news. You all correctly interpreted what I said yesterday morning, and I didn't say that."
Mr Ahern said there were a number of issues around decentralisation that could be summarised briefly: the Government was committed to decentralisation; the programme was voluntary; there were people who wanted to relocate and others who did not; and there were agencies that wanted to remain in Dublin and parts of the country that wanted to "receive decentralisation".
"All of these issues have to be worked out as they have been done from the start in detailed negotiations between the staff representatives and those representing Government, and we are determined that we can do that."
There was an effort, he said, to "hype this up to some huge crisis that isn't the case".
The decentralisation implementation group was slowly and steadily doing its job, but he was committed to "doing it by negotiation".
Mr Ahern was heckled by an Impact delegate at the conclusion of his address. As other delegates were giving the Taoiseach a standing ovation, Willie Cumming, an employee of the Office of Public Works, approached the podium holding a poster highlighting concerns about decentralisation.
Mr Cumming, a Socialist Workers Party activist, demanded to know why Mr Ahern had not addressed decentralisation in his speech.
"It's an important issue for our conference," he said.
The Taoiseach said later he had not mentioned the issue in his speech because he had spoken about it on Thursday, and did not want to be "saying the same thing every day".