The Government will announce plans in the new year to move thousands of civil servants outside Dublin to kick-start its strategy of diverting much future development away from the capital, writes Mark Brennock, Political Correspondent
The decentralisation plan will see certain Government departments and offices moved to regional centres, leaving a minimum number of senior staff in Dublin.
The Government hopes the moves, to take place over a number of years, will begin a rebalancing of the State's population away from the capital over a 20-year period, easing the east coast's traffic and housing problems.
Launching the Government's long-awaited National Spatial Strategy yesterday, the Taoiseach said it was needed "to counter-balance Dublin for the good of Dublin, Dubliners and the rest of the country".
Without it, "three-quarters of the projected population increase of half a million in the next 20 years will happen in or around the greater Dublin area."
Moving civil servants will form part of a strategy to direct investment spending on roads and railways and house building away from the congested east coast region.
However, the Opposition claimed last night that a strategy of developing new centres could not be implemented at a time when the Government was cutting spending on road and rail links throughout the State.
The strategy designates Dundalk, Sligo, Letterkenny and Athlone/Tullamore/Mullingar as four new urban areas or "gateways" to be developed to attract jobs, infrastructure and population. These are in addition to the existing five such "gateways": Dublin, Cork, Limerick/Shannon, Galway and Waterford.
It also designates a series of "hubs" that would develop as satellites of the major centres. These are Ballina/Castlebar, Cavan, Ennis, Kilkenny, Mallow, Monaghan, Tralee/Killarney, Tuam and Wexford.
IBEC yesterday joined criticism of the strategy over the large number of towns and cities designated for development.
"The fact that so many towns have been prioritised greatly reduces the potential of the strategy to support Ireland's ongoing economic and social development," it said.
However, the Taoiseach rejected these criticisms, saying the Government had added just four new "gateways" when "we could have picked 10".
Saying it would not be right to concentrate development on a small number of urban areas, he said: "We don't want to create another five or six Dublins." The designation of "hubs" around the major centres would take account of "quality of life issues", allowing many people to live and work outside major urban areas.
He also rejected the alternative criticism that too few centres were designated and that some areas had lost out. If the Government had chosen a much larger number, "we would have made a dog's dinner of the country".
He stressed that the plan was not an investment plan, nor did it contain any new tax incentives for companies to set up in regions outside Dublin. However, national and local authorities will be told to base future decisions about where to direct investment and spending on infrastructure on the plan.
The Taoiseach did not commit himself to a number of jobs that would be moved out of the capital, but said "we will go as large as we possibly can".
It emerged last night that there are still differences over the number of staff from individual departments who would remain in Dublin when their departments were relocated. Ministers have said they want a small number of senior staff, constituency offices and press offices to remain in the capital.
The Taoiseach, however, suggested that entire departments would have to move rather than having them split between Dublin and another location.