Charlie McCreevy (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

The time line to complete this programme is 31 December 2006 and I hope that will be met. We chose that date to put pressure on Ministers and Departments to ensure it is done before a certain event occurs in the summer of 2007. I make no apologies for saying that, it will put pressure on Ministers and politicians to ensure it is delivered.

I am aware of newspaper speculation about some surveys of limited numbers of staff in various organisations. It is not my intention to ask the Department of Finance to conduct a staff survey. It took four years to make this decision and we will ensure it happens.

The attitude of some people and commentators since we made the decision is totally at variance with what they said four years prior to the decision, when they were of the view that we would not make the decision, but if we did it would be good. Now that we have made the decision, they are saying it will not succeed and we should not have made it. It is a case of having one's cake and eating it.

As regards Dublin civil servants, there will still be plenty of public servants post-decentralisation in the Dublin region. There will be a large number of civil and public servants in the Dublin region and there will be ample work for them to do. As regards the recent advertisement for a vacancy in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, that was the proper and correct thing to do. Anyone now aspiring to higher posts in the Civil Service will have to be aware that eight of the Departments will move outside Dublin and that a large number of public and civil servants will be based outside Dublin. People should be under no illusion of their responsibilities after our decision last December on decentralisation.

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