Mr. Robert Watt:

The Minister announced a review of workforce planning in the budget as to the location of offices. Mr. Cagney and his team are working on that. The decentralisation programme that was done before was a disaster and was ill-conceived. I can say this because I worked with former Minister, Mr. McCreevy, I see him a great deal, would have good time for him and he will not be offended when I say this. The notion of decentralising administrative head offices is a mistake. It can be considered, however, when looking at other types of services. It is a possibility. One does not have to have all the services in one location but one needs the administrative heads and the head offices of Departments together. It, of course, does not have to be in Dublin but historically that has been the case and I cannot see that changing any time soon. No matter what one does, those elements need to stay together.

There is no reason why a whole variety of other services should be in Dublin. One of the things that we are looking at is the whole question of digital, not hubs - I cannot think of the title we are using at the moment - but where we can have offices out on the commuter belt, people can go and log in there rather than having to come into the city centre. We are looking at this because we are conscious of the fact that people want to move and work differently as the commuting times are so long now and this is a big factor for people and their families.