The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, last night insisted considerable progress had been made on the Government's decentralisation programme, on the eve of a meeting of the senior civil servants' union which will today hear strong criticism of the plan.
Union leaders predict a major shortfall in the number of participants in the plan, which proposes moving more than 10,000 civil and public servants to locations outside Dublin.
A special delegate conference of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants in Dublin today will debate 65 motions on the topic, almost all of them highly critical of the plan.
However, Mr Cullen said last night that "considerable progress has been made in advancing the Government's decentralisation programme".
Mr Cullen, who is a member of the Cabinet sub-committee on decentralisation, said the first report of the Decentralisation Implementation Group, chaired by Mr Phil Flynn, had been "very well received by the Cabinet sub-committee at its meeting on Thursday last It is clear that Mr Flynn and his group have made considerable progress and are well on target to deliver an implementation plan to the Government by the end of March".
He said he was "particularly impressed" with the manner in which the group was addressing such issues as the human resources and accommodation implications associated with the programme.
He said the Government looked forward to receiving the implementation plan and pressing ahead with it as soon as possible.
A substantial motion from the executive of the AHCPS to be discussed today deplores the lack of advance consultation with public service unions.
It says some of the locations chosen are unsuitable; seeks to extend the time scale to 10-15 years rather than the current three years; and warns of the possible creation of "a public service wasteland in Dublin in respect of legitimate career and development requirements".
Other motions come from union branches in almost every Government Department criticising various aspects of the proposals.
The AHCPS called today's special delegate conference because of what it calls "the widespread concern of key managers in the Civil Service and in State agencies at aspects of the Government's decentralisation programme".
In a statement last week it said the programme was unobjectionable in principle but unworkable in practice within the three-year time frame proposed.