The Government was urged yesterday to abandon the decentralisation of State agencies and focus instead on relocating non-specialist posts in the Civil Service.
Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU) general secretary Blair Horan said up to 6,000 civil servants could be successfully relocated within five to six years, but the Government should "forget about" trying to move some 4,000 others in State agencies or in specialist posts.
The CPSU, which represents about 11,000 civil servants in lower-ranking clerical posts, is the only union which has been unequivocally supportive of the decentralisation programme since it was announced in 2003.
The Government had initially hoped to move 10,000 public servants from Dublin to locations throughout the State by the end of this year.
Mr Horan told delegates to the CPSU's annual conference, in Galway, that the programme had offered clerical and executive officers in Government departments the opportunity to move to a post at their existing level in any county of their choosing.
However, a similar option did not exist for those in professional and technical jobs in the Civil Service, nor for those employed by State agencies. "For an engineer or an architect in the OPW, the chances of their post transferring to their home county is slim, and the same is true of the State agencies, which also have a greater pattern of Dublin recruitment," he said.
"This is the reason why that part of the programme has not to date, and will not in my view, be successful."
But Mr Horan rejected the criticism of those who had labelled the overall decentralisation programme a failed policy initiative. The reality was that CPSU members had been "enthusiastic supporters" of the project from the beginning.
The latest application figures showed that, with the exception of shortfalls at principal officer and assistant principal level, there was also sufficient support among those in middle-management jobs to complete the transfer of nearly 6,000 general service posts. A total of 5,846 non-specialist Civil Service posts are due to be relocated under the programme, and more than 6,000 applications for transfers have been made by staff in the relevant grades.
Delegates also heard confirmation that the CPSU is to pursue significant pay increases for up to 10,000 civil servants as a result of an Equality Tribunal decision last year.
The tribunal found that seven female clerical officers in the Garda Síochána had been discriminated against because they received less pay than male gardaí who were doing "like work".
As reported in The Irish Times in January, the CPSU says the case provides the basis for further equal pay claims by clerical officers across the Civil Service. The union said yesterday a successful outcome would initially cost €300 million and subsequently add €100 million annually to the public service pay bill.
However, the union's deputy general secretary, Rosaleen Glackin, warned that the case would take "a number of years" to reach an outcome.
