The abandonment of the decentralisation target marks another stage in the Government's remarkable reinvention programme, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
It is not so much a climbdown as a headlong jump. There will not, Minister of State Mr Tom Parlon conceded yesterday, be a "big bang" implementation of the decentralisation programme. He could have added that there will not be a small bang. Indeed, it is arguable whether there will be a bang to be heard at all.
Last December, the then minister for finance, Mr Charlie McCreevy, announced that 10,300 civil and public servants would have moved out of Dublin to 53 locations by 2007. This was not a target, but a commitment: "It can be done, and it will be done," he said.
Well, it can't and it won't. Yesterday, Mr Parlon announced a plan involving just 3,500 jobs going to 20 locations by 2008, rather than 2007. Some more Garda and Defence Forces staff are to go at some point, 723 from State agencies are to go at an unspecified time, and plans are to be drawn up to move information technology staff from various Departments.
But the bottom line is that, as of yesterday, the Government is committed to moving just a third of the number it specified last year - and there is some smoke and mirrors involved even to get up to this figure.
Department of Finance officials confirmed yesterday that around half of this 3,500 consists of staff who are already outside the capital but who want to move elsewhere. Roughly half of the 3,500 are moving to locations within the Dublin commuter belt - so much for regional development. So Fine Gael's Richard Bruton was probably about right yesterday when he said this phase of decentralisation would shift somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 civil servants out of the Greater Dublin region.
The abandonment of the decentralisation commitment is another important step in the recasting of the Government's image, embarked upon immediately after the June local and European elections disaster. Fianna Fáil sources said then that the criticisms they received from voters during the campaign were around three themes: that they were uncaringly right wing, that they had broken election promises made in 2002, and that they were arrogant.
Having taken their election defeat, the Government and its advisers have set about dealing with each of these criticisms with an impressive determination. The departure of Charlie McCreevy to Brussels was the single most important step. It was not that he was actually to blame for all of these things. But he was the minister most often said to be right wing; he was the one most often perceived as arrogant in his defence of controversial decisions; and he was the one who insisted most loudly that the cuts voters were seeing with their own eyes weren't cuts at all.
In a variety of public pronouncements, most notably in the Taoiseach's interview published in this newspaper 10 days ago, the Government has sought to address the uncaring "right wing" charge. Mr Ahern has pledged to devote himself to looking after the less-well-off. He laid great emphasis on acknowledging that people had been left behind by the boom, and declared that his own personal outlook is a socialist one. To emphasise the point he has enthusiastically denounced right-wing economists and alleged right-wing doctors in recent days.
Then in last week's Book of Estimates came a concerted Government effort both to appear more caring, and to make good on some of the unfulfilled 2002 election commitments. There were 30,000 extra medical cards, and 200,000 GP-only cards (it was only Fianna Fáil, and not the PDs, who promised the 200,000 medical cards in the first place). Mr McDowell has been insisting he is on course to give us the 2,000 promised extra gardaí.
Under the "caring" heading came a substantial commitment to funding services for disability, €70 million for accident and emergency units, extra money for special needs assistants in national schools.
Decentralisation was one of the key issues on which the Government displayed its third perceived flaw: arrogance. The plan to scatter civil servants around the State was widely seen as a cynical pre-election ploy to curry favour in as many local authority wards as possible.
The scheme seemed to fly in the face of rational planning considerations. While the Government had just put forward its own National Spatial Strategy to spread development and population more evenly around the State, three-quarters of the locations chosen were not the gateways and hubs identified in the National Spatial Strategy.
The Department of the Gaeltacht headquarters was going to Knock, outside the Gaeltacht, the Department of the Marine to landlocked Cavan. Professionals in State agencies almost all said they would not go. Many senior civil servants said they didn't want to go either.
The entire process was hailed as a means of ending a phenomenon called a "Dublin mind-set" - an ever-popular target among non-Dublin backbenchers and their voters. But the Government was not decentralising power, only offices. The centralised bureaucracy was to remain completely intact, while moving some of its desks out of the capital. Local government was to remain as relatively powerless as it ever was.
The arrogance was in the tone in which such criticisms were dismissed out of hand. "It doesn't need to be discussed. It only needs to be implemented," was a comment from one Government source early this year which was typical. "It is not up for discussion," said another.
But the take-up, particularly among State agencies as opposed to Government Departments, was far short of what was required. However, even when it was plainly obvious that it was not going to be possible to meet the commitment, the Government insisted that there was no problem, that black was white.
Yesterday, the Government decided to cut its losses and get out from under the massively unattainable commitment. The numbers and locations are scaled back hugely, the timetable has been stretched, and many of the proposed moves have no timetable at all. Mr McCreevy had said it would be self-financing - in other words it would effectively cost the Exchequer nothing. Yesterday, Department of Finance officials said it would cost money to implement the programme until 2026.
The announcement of the change yesterday has ensured the issue does not dominate coverage of next week's Budget.This is the first Budget of the post-election, post-McCreevy era and the Government has held back details of its capital spending programme to use it to spice up the event. Had it not made the announcement this week, the sparse sum allocated for decentralisation in 2005 could have dominated news coverage of Mr Cowen's first big day out in Finance.
Now that it is out of the way, the Government will be hoping for an orgy of positive coverage for its capital spending, tax changes, social welfare increases, disability funding and other Budget initiatives next week. The re-election campaign started in earnest in July 2004. The slow, steady efforts at reinvention continue next week.