Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

More than 100 people moved and only two did not. That institute is launching successfully in Galway. As I have said, there are problems with the agencies because there is not transferability between them. Some of the staff contend that there should be at lower levels but that arrangement does not exist at present. In the short term, approximately 2,500 civil servants can be moved. It will take a longer period to manage the situation in a way that does not affect the work relationship of any of the services to move to other locations. That has been worked with the Department. The agencies will be a more complex issue because, obviously, if staff do not want to work in an agency, there is a difficulty. That is true in the case of FÁS.

Regarding FÁS, the industrial relations machinery must be used to see if a resolution can be found. It is right for the management and unions to see if they can do this within the parameters set down by the Department of Finance which have been well tested through the movement of people to locations such as Letterkenny, Sligo, Limerick, Tipperary and Killarney over the years. It is not new or that extraordinary.

The figures I have seen show that 2,500 civil servants will move in the period up to 2008. That in no way exaggerates the kinds of figures that moved back in the mid-1990s when there were at least those kinds of figures. I know Deputy Rabbitte previously referred to it as an enormous switch to the whole system, but it is not. Those kinds of numbers moved on previous occasions. Regardless of which Ministers were in place, successive Governments moved on and nobody changed them. Nobody wanted to move and nobody has complained about the service to the public. A process exists and it should be followed.

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