Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As I said, we believe the outstanding industrial relations issues can only be dealt with in the context of a centralised discussion with ICTU, at that level rather than at individual State agency level, which has been the case up to now. The DIG, which has responsibility for moving this forward, has suggested to us, and we have agreed, to pursue proposals directly with ICTU for getting central discussions under way on the industrial relations issues, including the ones raised by the Deputy as regards the decentralisation of these agencies. That is where matters stand. Until the industrial relations problems are sorted out, clearly very little progress can be made. Progress has been made in some agencies but overall, as the Deputy has said, because there is no tradition of interchangeability or greater operability, we must explore with ICTU how this might be moved forward at central level.

That element of the programme will take longer to achieve, but progress is evident in a number of areas. A number of agencies are progressing their moves where location, mix of staff, business and size of organisation are favourable. The Health and Safety Authority has established an advance office in Kilkenny in preparation for its moves to Thomastown, and Pobal has set up an office in Clifden. This year it is expected the Road Safety Authority will be located in Loughrea and Ballina. FÁS will have a further small advance office in Birr. The Equality Authority will have an advance office in Roscrea and SEI will have a presence in Dundalk. In addition, Enterprise Ireland will have established a presence in Shannon, including the transfer of some existing Shannon Development posts to that organisation.

Officials in my Department are in contact with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on the matter. The decentralisation implementation group has expressed a view that resolution of the outstanding issues is central to the overall implementation process in the State agencies. I agree with that view and I hope that matters can move forward. As with all industrial relations negotiations, it is impossible to give a precise timeframe for their conclusion.

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