John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

The introduction of the single payment system, SPS, brought about a reduced workload for Department of Agriculture and Food staff in Castlebar previously involved with headage and livestock premia payments. The work concerned with the single payment scheme is in the process of being centralised to Portlaoise. At present, there are approximately 135 staff in the Castlebar office and, while they have been assisting with the roll-out of the SPS, approximately 100 will need to be redeployed to other work in the near future.

At the outset I want to state clearly that none of my Department's staff in Castlebar has been forced to go to Portlaoise and none will be made redundant. However, to assist with the delivery of the single payment scheme, volunteers from my Department's local offices, including Castlebar, were asked to transfer temporarily to Portlaoise and were paid the appropriate travel and subsistence rates.

My Department, together with the Department of Finance and other Departments, is working to identify opportunities for redeployment of our Castlebar staff to other work. Given that my Department now finds itself in a situation where it is experiencing staff surpluses, this will inevitably mean transferring staff to fill vacancies in other Departments. At all times, they will continue to be employed as civil servants on the same terms and conditions that they currently hold. There are no proposals to relocate any staff to a town or location other than where they are currently based. The only exception will be where staff volunteer to transfer to another location.

My Department is pursuing a number of different strategies to provide our staff in Castlebar with a number of options in the short and medium term. One option open to staff is to transfer to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in Castlebar. That Department, in conjunction with the Garda Síochána, has established the Garda information services centre, GISC, which will perform some administrative functions for the Garda. This centre will be situated in Michael Davitt House and, when fully rolled out, will have a staffing complement of 161 people. While the majority of staff in GISC will be required to work on a shift basis, there are about 40 positions within the centre where staff will continue to work on a normal day basis and these are being reserved for Department of Agriculture and Food staff based in Castlebar. The transfer of staff to shift work will be on a voluntary basis. With regard to the provision for training for civil servants, the Garda has specifically developed a month-long full training programme for administrative staff working in GISC.

Additional possible options may include transferring to other Departments based in Castlebar and my Department has been in contact with these Departments to pursue this matter. A number of staff in Castlebar have applied to move to other locations in County Mayo under the Government's decentralisation programme. Accordingly, my Department has had discussions with the Department of Finance and other Departments on the possibility of advancing the plans of Departments which are decentralising to County Mayo.

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