Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Last week I asked the Taoiseach if it was not the case that the decentralisation programme announced by the then Minister, former Deputy McCreevy, had run aground and the Taoiseach denied it. Three days later he contrived an interview in which he announced the climb-down. This programme was to be the major plank of this Government's term of office and involved the biggest relocation of civil and public servants in the history of the State, and the Taoiseach contrived one of his interviews to say that it will not go ahead as planned.

In any of the number of chat show interviews the Taoiseach gave over the weekend he did not deal with any of the questions that are uppermost in the minds of the civil and public servants concerned and in the 53 venues to which the Government pledged to transfer sections of the civil and public service. As a result of the Taoiseach's climb-down, which venues will not get the Departments, agencies or the civil or public servants that were promised? What is the new deadline for any decentralisation that will proceed? How many of the 10,300 personnel pledged by Mr. McCreevy will still be relocated? How many of the agencies will be relocated? Will any of the specialist staff be relocated?

Is it still the Taoiseach's intention to proceed with the relocation of the policy functions and the heads of policy making in Departments? How much of the 200,000 sq. m. of office space which the Office of Public Works was instructed to procure has been procured? Has the Taoiseach told the Office of Public Works to stop acquiring such space since he announced his climb-down? With regard to the instructions to the OPW to dispose of a similar amount of office space in this city, how is it proposed that will happen given that the people occupying it are not transferring? Does the Taoiseach agree with the Tánaiste who said: "The target will be reached within a very short timeframe and I believe that if we don't reach it quickly the uncertainty that is hanging over the public service will be damaging to the public service and damaging for this Government"?

Is it not time to go back to the drawing board and review a plan that was ill thought out and off the top of the head? It was designed to disperse civil and public servants throughout the country but had little to do with genuine decentralisation or devolution of power. It was never intended to correct regional imbalance and it has now run aground. The Taoiseach has had to climb down on it, which is a major humiliation for the Government. He ought to tell people whose lives have been put on hold precisely who will be transferred and when.

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