Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

Under the Government's decentralisation programme, the development co-operation directorate of the Department of Foreign Affairs, currently based in Dublin, will decentralise to Limerick. This is scheduled to take place during the first quarter of 2007 and will involve the relocation to Limerick of 124 posts.

A total of 26 posts in the directorate, including that of director general, are filled by officers who have signalled their intention to decentralise to Limerick and 15 officers serving elsewhere in the Department, mostly abroad, have also expressed an interest in doing so. This total of 41 represents 33% of the posts being transferred to Limerick. 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.

Of the 24 specialist posts attached to the directorate at headquarters, three are designated as principal development specialist, 12 as senior development specialist and nine as development specialists. Five officers included in the above total of 41 are development specialists, of whom four were recruited since the announcement of the decentralisation programme in December 2003 and one applied via the CAF, the central applications facility. Two senior development specialists and a further four development specialists, who had also applied to decentralise to Limerick, have since withdrawn their applications. No applications have been received to date for the three principal development specialist posts.

It is my hope that a greater number of specialists will, in time, volunteer to decentralise to Limerick. Discussions are ongoing with representatives of the specialists, their union, IMPACT, and the Department of Finance about the conditions of service that will be applicable to specialists transferring to Limerick and to those who choose to remain in Dublin. These discussions also have a wider Civil Service dimension.

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