Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

Under the Government's decentralisation programme, announced in December 2003, the development co-operation directorate of the Department of Foreign Affairs, currently based in Dublin, is scheduled to decentralise to Limerick. This will involve the relocation to Limerick of 123 posts and is scheduled to take place during the first quarter of 2007. The Office of Public Works is currently assessing a number of accommodation proposals in Limerick.

A detailed implementation plan was completed by my officials in March of this year and submitted to the Flood committee for its consideration. The plan addresses a wide variety of issues, including human resource considerations, training and development, business issues, risk management and accommodation needs. The plan, together with regular updates, can be accessed on the Department's website.

Already, a total of 26 posts in the directorate are filled by staff who have expressed an interest in decentralising to Limerick, including seven officers recruited from other Departments via the central applications facility and five staff recruited from interdepartmental promotion panels. The process of transferring to the directorate staff currently serving elsewhere in the Department and of recruiting staff via the central applications facility will be accelerated in the new year. The aim is that by the second half of 2006 most posts in the directorate will be filled by staff who will decentralise to Limerick.

The Government is aware that the decentralisation process will take place during a period of significant growth in the overseas development aid budget and the strategies outlined in the implementation plan are designed to minimise these risks. The following are among the steps being taken. To ensure continuity and to minimise disruption, Department officials are currently involved in detailed planning on strategies for retaining corporate memory and ensuring there is adequate training and induction for new staff. To guard against a very rapid turnover of staff in the months immediately preceding decentralisation to Limerick, Development Co-operation Ireland has already started the process of bringing staff in from other Departments who have applied for decentralisation with Development Co-operation Ireland.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

Development Co-operation Ireland's work involves liaising with other sections of the Department of Foreign Affairs, other Departments, NGOs such as Concern, Trócaire and GOAL and a wide range of international organisations. In order to ensure this important networking continues, a liaison office will remain in Dublin following decentralisation. In addition, the Department will invest in video-conferencing facilities. Development Co-operation Ireland is consulting other Departments who have experienced decentralisation, for example, the Office of the Revenue Commissioners in Limerick and the UK Department for International Development which relocated some of its operations from London to Glasgow in the early 1980s.

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