Two Ministers and a Minister of State have acknowledged that the Government's three-year deadline for its decentralisation plan is unlikely to be met. Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent, reports.
As the Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said the Government "has already started to slither out of the decentralisation package as announced by Mr McCreevy", the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, said yesterday that "it would be extremely difficult to achieve the full amount of what the Government has outlined within the three-year span".
The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, said the Government was "committed to the principle" of decentralisation. However, there were many practical issues to be dealt with, and the process would take "a number of years".
Asked had the deadline been shifted, he said: "There isn't a deadline in that it all has to happen on one particular big bang day. It's a process over a couple of years, and we are keen to get on with it quickly.
"These things take time. The last time we did decentralisation it went on over many years. You won't wake up one morning and suddenly have a whole lot of civil servants moved to the country."
The chairman of the Implementation Body, Mr Phil Flynn, would be reporting to the Government within a fortnight on the "practical issues" which needed to be dealt with.
"There is a lot of detail to work out, and one thing is becoming clear from members of the public service generally is that they are seeking a lot more detail about when they will be asked to go, and where they will be asked to go, and what building and what changes will surround all that."
Minister of State Mr Noel Ahern said he "always thought the scale of it might take a bit longer than people might have thought and that's no harm" as it would allow for greater consultation.
Mr Rabbitte said it was implicit in the Government's new tone that it now knew the decentralisation plan would have to be negotiated. "It was never practical and never in the interests of good governance in this country," he said.
Senator Brian Hayes (FG) said the Government was now in a hole in relation to decentralisation and should "stop digging".
In relation to a recent suggestion by Minister of State Mr Tom Parlon that those who move out of Dublin could achieve faster promotion, he said: "If the Government decides to shore up its programme through creating new posts to which staff could be promoted, the implications for the taxpayer could be massive." The Government should "recognise the folly of the scheme announced in the budget, and put a realistic and achievable decentralisation programme in place".