Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I do not accept the Deputy's contention. We have taken the decision to introduce a very ambitious programme of decentralisation to change how the Government works. As part of that process, the Government and its agencies will be moved to diverse locations. That decision has been taken and we stand by it since we believe that it was right. We are not washing our hands of the implementation phase. We have appointed someone who, as the Deputy knows, having taken the central applications idea and ascertained the level of demand, is now matching that to those Departments ready to proceed. That is a very intricate industrial relations issue that must be dealt with in the normal fashion. The chairman of the implementation group and his colleagues are well qualified to move those issues forward, and that is proceeding currently.

The Deputy asked me whether the programme is progressing as we envisaged. When the locations were announced, the Departments were matched to them. It was never going to be the case that one would have a "big bang" approach, with everything moved and sorted out in a single day. It was a question of taking those cases where one could clearly see immediate movement possible and acting on those so that the message could go out very clearly that the programme was in implementation mode and that we were proceeding.

One cannot have it both ways. The Deputy cannot say that he is opposed to decentralisation and then ask me why everyone is not already in the new locations.

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