Mr Tom Parlon was not involved in drafting the Government's decentralisation plans, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, told the Dáil.
Mr Parlon, who is Minister of State for the Office of Public Works, issued a controversial leaflet last week claiming credit for the decentralisation of civil servants to his Laois-Offaly constituency.
Yesterday, as Mr Parlon sat next to him at question time, Mr McCreevy said: "As far as the process was concerned, Deputy Parlon was not involved. He was not involved in the decision-making or the preparation. He knew nothing about it and he was as wise as everybody else. He was quicker off the blocks than anybody else. That is the truth of the matter."
The Minister said he understood "from sources close to Leinster House", that on the Tuesday night before the Budget was announced, Mr Parlon happened to fall into certain company in a hostelry not far from the Dáil. "Someone cottoned on to the fact that something might happen with decentralisation the next day. That was the extent of the Minister of State's knowledge."
Wishing the best of luck to Mr Parlon, Mr McCreevy added: "If all deputies were up as early in the morning, Fianna Fáil would have 98 seats at every general election."
On Mr Parlon's leaflet-drop, he said: "I regard what has gone on in the constituency of Laois-Offaly as a release of the creative tensions resulting from the stresses of multi-seat constituency politics."
Asked by Mr Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (SF, Cavan-Monaghan) if he recognised that much surprise and puzzlement had been expressed by many civil servants at the announcement, Mr McCreevy said the original decision was announced in December 1999.
"Four years to the day later, I announced the locations to host these Departments. This was not a short period of time. We could have suggested that we consult for 100 years. I suppose I should have set up task forces, high-level groups, cross-departmental teams, review bodies, partnership groups, consultants, evaluation committees, parliamentary committees, along with spatial strategy and various other bodies in order to keep this going." Mr Paul McGrath (FG, Westmeath) said: "The Government has all of them already employed."
Mr McCreevy said the Government had consulted with trade unions in the four years. One union had made a very detailed submission which was taken into account. "The secretaries general met and wrote a report. We got submissions on behalf of every town and village in the country from local authorities and chambers of commerce. I heard concerns from deputies and senators from all parties over a long period of time. We then made the decision."
He said that for four years the Government was criticised for making no decision, and now it was being criticised for making a decision. "This is not confined to members of these Houses. Some sections of the media seem to want to have their cake and eat it and seem to be more concerned that they did not know about it."
Mr McCreevy asked deputies to consider what would have happened if certain people had known decentralisation was about to happen. "Can deputies imagine what would have gone on among deputies, senators, local authorities and chambers of commerce? The great example of my colleague from Laois-Offaly would be in the ha'penny place and this would have happened throughout the country."
Ireland, said Mr McCreevy, was a small country. "This is not in the same category as putting a man on the moon, the invention of the wheel or the conquering of the North Pole. In my Budget speech last week, I said this would help change the formulation of policy in years ahead by getting away from a Dublin mindset."
He added that he had already said Ireland was such a small place that "I would expect Tiger Woods to go around it in about 67 shots on a reasonably good day".
