Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I have no plans to change the scale or scope of the decentralisation programme. There have been approximately 10,600 applications for decentralisation so far. New applications are being received every week. For the past 14 months since the closing of the priority application period in September 2004, an average of 100 new applications have been received every month. I have no reason to believe that the rate of application will lessen as the central applications facility, CAF, remains open and continues to accept further new applications.

Using the statistic that few civil servants are moving with their posts is not accurate. It assumes that no one will move between Civil Service organisations. A career in the Civil Service for most people will encompass service in several Departments and different posts within those Departments. Many Civil Service organisations have a formally agreed mobility policy whereby people move post every five years or so.

Many civil servants have already transferred across Departments to decentralising posts in advance of transfers out of Dublin over the coming years. To date, more than 900 of the 7,200 civil servants are in place, over 30% of whom are in middle management and higher level grades.

To give the Deputy an example of how well the transfer system within Civil Service organisations works, I remind her of the information given by the Revenue Commissioners to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service last year. The Revenue Commissioners set up decentralised offices with 900 staff in the mid-west in the early 1990s. At the time, 10% to 12% of staff in the Collector General's office opted to relocate. If staff who were employed in other Revenue posts are included, that figure increases to 25%. As a result, 75% of decentralising staff were new to the Revenue organisation. The Revenue Commissioners looked on that as an opportunity to examine its internal efficiency. As a result of that exercise, significant improvements were made to processes, systems and work practices which were implemented in the course of decentralisation.

As the Deputy knows, the Collector General's office was decentralised without loss of efficiency or effectiveness, and it has risen to all the business challenges that have emerged in the past decade. I expect that Revenue's experience can be replicated in the current decentralisation process.

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