The State's largest public sector union IMPACT will today call for the abandonment of plans to move many State agencies out of Dublin, saying the vast majority of its technical and professional members will not move "under any circumstances". Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent, reports.
In a submission to an Oireachtas committee examining the decentralisation issue, the union will also warn that it will cost up to €50 million a year to pay the salaries of those who opt to remain in Dublin when their offices or agencies leave the capital. In addition, many agencies would not continue to function if moved from the capital, it says.
The union's bald statement of opposition comes as a further blow to the plan to move 10,000 civil and public service staff out of the capital. IMPACT represents key professional and technical staff who are the most reluctant to move, but whose skills are essential for the public service.
The union says the Government's plan "was discredited from the beginning because senior politicians, including the Minister for Finance, publicly acknowledged the party political motives behind the proposals".
It will be among eight public service unions giving their views today, day two of the hearings on the issue being held by the Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service.
The 52,000-member union, which represents more than 1,000 civil servants and a further 600 in State agencies who are earmarked for a move, says the problems of decentralising specialist staff are "unique and insurmountable". These staff include engineers, architects, marine geologists, valuers, accountants, petroleum specialists, health and safety inspectors, air-traffic controllers, cartographers, heritage experts and various other professionals and technicians.
It says specialist staff who opt to remain in Dublin or other existing locations cannot be replaced through the transfer of other public servants; local labour markets could not fill many of the specialist posts; and redeploying specialists who remained in Dublin to non-specialist posts would mean many would leave.
Dismissing the current proposals as "neither practical nor workable in their present form", it says no other issue has provoked such a negative reaction among members in recent years.
IMPACT says it is still possible "to re-engineer the programme to allow the potential benefits of decentralisation to be explored and achieved without damaging services, wasting resources or eroding working conditions and career prospects". It calls for an independent body to carry out proper consultation and take decisions on public service decentralisation.
However the union will tell TDs and senators that agencies whose staff are overwhelmingly against the move "should immediately be removed from the decentralisation programme". These include the Valuation Office, the Health and Safety Authority, the Probation and Welfare Service and the Office of Public Works.
The union will also say that the Government should not enter contracts to buy land or buildings for the purpose of decentralising these organisations or to build new facilities for them in locations marked for decentralisation.
There was just "a small number for which decentralisation may become practical if sufficient numbers of appropriate staff volunteer for decentralisation after July 2004".
The union also warns of "a massive negative impact on public services, particularly in technical, professional and specialist areas.
"Certain offices and organisations would simply be unable to carry out their functions if the proposals were implemented."
With Common Assessment Framework data showing just 7.5 per cent of staff earmarked for decentralisation are willing to move with the organisations which now employ them, this means "92.5 per cent of the staff of decentralised departments and organisations would have no background, experience or expertise in their new organisations."
IMPACT rejects the Government's contention that the low figures opting to relocate reflect trade union policy of non-co-operation. It says public servants and their unions "have also been frustrated at the Government's habit of consistently overstating the level of consultation over and support for the implementation of the proposals".